Raiders kill as Sharon flies to US

JERUSALEM - Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis in a raid on a Jewish settlement yesterday and Israeli warplanes replied by attacking a Palestinian Authority building, wounding 11 people.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, furious with Yasser Arafat over a wave of suicide bombings and gun attacks against the Jewish state, was on a flight to Washington to urge President George W. Bush to sever ties with the Palestinian President when the gunmen struck.

Aides travelling with Sharon blamed Arafat's Palestinian Authority and promised a swift response.

"We hold the Palestinian Authority responsible," said spokesman Arnon Perlman during the flight, adding that Sharon would not cut the visit short.

An Israeli mother and her daughter, who had been taken hostage, were among the four killed by the gunmen at the Hamra settlement in the West Bank's Jordan Valley.

The incident apparently ended when an Army commando unit stormed a house and killed a Palestinian gunman, but troops were conducting a house-to-house search for more assailants.

Fighter planes fired two missiles at the authority's main headquarters in Nablus in retaliation for the killing, the Israeli Army said. Palestinian officials said 11 people, mostly policemen, were wounded.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group connected to Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the settlement attack.

The Israeli Army said it was still trying to find out exactly what had happened at Hamra, but a spokesman confirmed that Palestinian gunmen killed and wounded several Israelis.

In other bloodshed, Palestinian witnesses in the Gaza Strip said an Israeli soldier shot dead a 16-year-old Palestinian as he stood and watched Israeli bulldozers at work.

The Army said soldiers shot a Palestinian who had thrown a grenade.

Shortly before Sharon departed, Israeli police said they had arrested a Palestinian with explosives strapped to his body on a bus in Jerusalem. They later said two other Palestinians were arrested with a bomb near the city of Netanya, apparently en route to launch a suicide attack.

The Army called a news conference to display eight Qassam-2 missiles it said were seized on a Palestinian truck travelling from Nablus to nearby Jenin.

Brigadier-General Gershon Yitzhak said the missiles had a range of 10-12km and were capable of hitting Israel's densely populated coastal region.

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israeli television from Washington, where he was meeting senior US officials, that if the missiles were used against Israeli cities "it would be a dramatic escalation ... We would have to respond".

Sharon, who meets Bush today, is making his fourth White House visit since coming to power a year ago on a pledge to improve Israelis' security.

Bush's State of the Union address last week, in which he referred to Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil", means Sharon will preach to the converted when he restates his concern that Tehran and Baghdad have nuclear aspirations.

But Sharon's focus will be on what he regards as Arafat's failure to crack down on Palestinian militants behind attacks against the Jewish state.

Israeli Government spokesman Avi Pazner said: "To our regret, Arafat has become irrelevant and I would even say his only relevancy is his devotion to continue in the way of terror.

"So we must find other Palestinians and Sharon has already started talks with other Palestinian leaders, like Abu Ala and Abu Mazen," he said, referring to a surprise meeting last week with the veteran pair.

- REUTERS

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