GAZA - Israeli helicopter gunships pounded Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip, hours after a Palestinian mortar bomb attack wounded a baby in a nearby Jewish settlement.
Witnesses said the helicopters fired missiles at targets near Gaza City and attacked a security compound near Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
Earlier, a 10-month-old Israeli boy was critically wounded and his mother was slightly hurt when three mortar bombs slammed into the Jewish settlement of Atzmona, near Rafah.
When the Israeli helicopters attacked, no anti-aircraft fire was heard, because the Palestinians in Gaza City have no anti-aircraft guns. No rush was made to air raid shelters, because there are none. And flight from the city was not possible, because you cannot flee far before you reach a closed frontier.
The night attacks on Palestinian targets in Gaza City must have been among the most serene air raids in military history - unleashed slowly, deliberately, as if in the full confidence that the Palestinian forces on the ground possessed no weapons which could strike back.
Obscured by mist, the helicopters' presence was betrayed only by the distant throb of their rotors as they hovered off the city's beaches.
In mid-evening they began to fire missiles that glowed red as they tracked across the night sky and then flashed like sheet lightning and hit the ground with a thunderclap noise.
One was launched and then there was a pause of a minute or two as if the helicopter crews were taking a break. It took nearly an hour for the aircraft to fire off about 20 missiles at bases of security forces loyal to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, then turn around and go home.
Apart from the unlucky casualties, most residents of Gaza City seemed almost as calm as the pilots.
After the first impact, Palestinian cars sped away from the coastal area west of the city - but as it became clearer that all the fire was concentrated on perhaps 1 per cent of the city's area, most of the streets returned to normal.
Men gathered on corners to chat while the bombing continued and children got back on their bicycles. Shops stayed open to sell cold drinks and ice cream. Taxis cruised for business.
Only around the bombing targets was there something resembling panic. Nervous guards around Arafat's Gaza residence, where at least one missile hit an outlying building housing an armoured vehicle, shouted at civilians to keep away.
Not one bullet was fired at the helicopters and there were few of the defiant shouts in the street of "Allah-u-Akbar" (God is great) which greeted a similar raid six days earlier.
The Israeli forces say their raids are precisely targeted responses to attacks on Israeli civilians.
Mohammad, a young Palestinian journalist, said: "People got excited last week, but we are getting used to it now. We were all expecting this attack.
"What can you do? The Israelis have us surrounded and we have no heavy weapons. We are like animals in a cage."
An elderly official of Arafat's Palestinian Authority said: "We all have to die one day. We are not afraid of it."
- REUTERS
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Slow vengeance from night sky over Gaza Strip
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