Waves of violence in Middle East swamp politicians' words

GAZA - A wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence mounted yesterday as Israeli forces swept through a Gaza village, apparently hunting for militants after Qassam rockets hit an Israeli town for the first time.

In Washington, United States President George W. Bush said he and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would redouble efforts to end violence in the Middle East, but offered no new plans for US intervention sought by Mubarak.

"Both our countries view this situation with great alarm," Bush said. "We're both determined to redouble our efforts to work for peace."

A Saudi proposal for Arab-Israeli peace appeared to gain momentum after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. The official Saudi Press Agency said Assad expressed support for the land-for-peace initiative.

But Palestinian revenge attacks loomed after Israel killed two militants in a helicopter missile strike near the West Bank city of Ramallah, an incident Palestinians described as an assassination.

Earlier, Qassam rockets launched by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip slammed into the southern Israeli town of Sderot. One rocket hit an apartment building and wounded three people.

"We will find the proper answer to Palestinian terror gone out of control," Lieutenant-Colonel Olivier Rafowicz, an Israeli Army spokesman, said of the rocket attack.

In other developments yesterday:

* At least two Palestinians were killed in the incursion into the village of Adassan in the southern Gaza Strip near the border with Israel during house-to-house searches, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli Army declined comment.

* Israeli tanks rumbled along a road leading to the northern Gaza village of Beit Hanoun and fired shells at Palestinian police positions.

* In a coastal area of northern Gaza, Israeli gunboats fired at Palestinian posts and a police jeep, wounding three policemen, one critically.

In Ramallah, West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi said the helicopter missile strike that killed one of his aides, Mohannad Abu Halaweh, and Fawzi Murrar of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, would bring Palestinian retribution.

"In a few hours, several days or a week you will see that you have done nothing and the situation will deteriorate in the most horrible way," Barghouthi said.

Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said: "We are still far away from using our maximal military capabilities but unless the Palestinians stop this rampage of violence we will have to step up our operational decisions as well."

Israeli political sources said the security cabinet had decided to step up military operations in the West Bank and Gaza and tighten travel restrictions on the Palestinians.

Shoval said Israel had imposed a "temporary curfew on the Palestinian roads".

- REUTERS

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