Israelis brace for revenge

JERUSALEM - Palestinians vowed revenge yesterday after Israeli forces killed eight people, including two children, in an attack that Washington deplored as "excessive" and an obstacle to restoring peace.

United States President George W. Bush spoke to King Abdullah of Jordan by telephone about recent attacks and told reporters the US urged the parties to reduce the violence.

State Department spokesman Charles Hunter called the Israeli attack "a new and dangerous escalation of violence".

"The Israeli action today was excessive. This attack ... is highly provocative and makes efforts to restore calm much more difficult," he said.

Israel fired missiles at a seven-storey building in the heart of Nablus, a Palestinian-ruled West Bank city, killing eight Palestinians, including two senior officials of the militant Hamas group and two boys, aged 8 and 10.

At least 21 people were injured.

Medical officials said the boys had been in the wrong place when the attack was launched.

Their parents were being treated for shock.

Raanan Gissin, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said an investigation was underway into the deaths of the boys, but he accused Hamas of allowing children into volatile areas for use as "human shields".

Sharon's office said the Army conducted the strike against Hamas members "who carried out acts of terror in the past and planned additional terror activities".

It said "the Army acted in order to prevent acts of murder ... against Israeli civilians."

The Army said it had received information that the Hamas command in the northern West Bank was responsible for "a long series of deadly attacks", including a Tel Aviv disco bombing that killed 21 Israelis two months ago.

At least 508 Palestinians, 130 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have died since a Palestinian uprising began last September after peace talks deadlocked.

The Palestinian Authority declared two days of mourning after the Nablus attack.

Tens of thousands marched and clashed with Israeli troops across the West Bank and Gaza in protest, vowing revenge.

Hamas' spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin warned that Israelis would pay "a heavy price" for the attack.

Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said: "[Sharon] knows that the Palestinians will not just accept to die while sitting in their houses."

Reporters said that about 50,000 people marched in Gaza City and 7000 in Jenin.

Israeli troops fired teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition in clashes with demonstrators in Ramallah, witnesses said. Palestinians returned fire.

Sharon was to meet his security cabinet overnight to discuss the deteriorating situation.

An Israeli Army spokesman said three Israeli civilians were wounded in a shooting west of Ramallah.

In Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, three masked men executed a 57-year-old Palestinian with a bullet to the head for alleged collaboration with Israel, Palestinian security sources said.

In Nablus, a Palestinian Authority security court, bringing forward sentencing by a day, condemned three men to die for collaborating with Israel over the killing last year of a senior official from President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

"We were obliged to make it today because of what happened here with the Israeli raid," said Nablus Governor Mahmud Aloul, who attended the sentencing.

- REUTERS

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