February 11, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 27, 1422

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GAZA CITY, Feb 10: Israeli F-16 warplanes on Sunday bombed the security headquarters in Yasser Arafat’s Gaza City compound, hours after Palestinian gunmen shot dead two women soldiers in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva, Palestinian security officials said.

Three bombs completely destroyed the building housing the navy police headquarters and badly damaged the command centre for Arafat’s elite Force 17 guards, officials said.

The blasts injured 22 Palestinians, including civilians and security force members, who were hit by flying debris, hospital officials said. None of the injuries were serious, they said.

The buildings hit were less than 100 metres (yards) from Arafat’s residence and offices, which the Palestinian leader has not visited since Israel blasted his Gaza heliport and helicopters and confined him to Ramallah in the West Bank two months ago.

The security offices have been blasted in previous Israeli retaliatory air raids.

Scene of chaos erupted on the streets as ambulances ferried more injured to emergency clinics and as people rushed to the main hospital to check on relatives.

Houses in the area had their windows blown out by the blast. Palestinian officials said the house of the Jordan’s diplomatic representative in the Gaza Strip was also damaged by shrapnel.

The air strikes came hours after two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a restaurant in front of the Israeli army’s southern command base in Beersheva, killing two women soldiers. They were identified by the army as 20-year-old Lieutenant Keren Rotestein and 18-year-old Corporal Aya Malachai, and five other people injured, three of them seriously.

Top Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina slammed the air raid, which he said was a bid by Sharon to sabotage the peace process and international efforts to end the 16-month crisis which has left almost 1,200 dead.

“We ask the United States to move quickly to stop the Israeli aggression before we lose the chance to return to calm in the region,” he said, adding that the air strikes would lead to a “big explosion of violence” in the region.

The attack was launched shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flew back from the United States where he had held meetings with US President George W. Bush and other top US officials.

Sharon was to meet with Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and senior Israeli security officials at his ranch in the Negev late Sunday, Israeli television said.

Sharon had wanted Bush to back his move to boycott Arafat as a peace partner, but the US leader stopped short of shunning Arafat, instead saying he would increase pressure on him.

SECOND ATTACK: Israeli helicopters launched a second attack in the Gaza Strip late on Sunday, firing on a metal workshop in the northern town of Beit Lahia, but without causing injuries, Palestinian security sources told AFP.