September 27, 2002	Friday	Rajab 19, 1423

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GAZA CITY, Sept 26: Seven people, including two Hamas militants hit in a helicopter missile strike, a Palestinian baby and an Israeli army officer, were killed in the Palestinian territories on Thursday, as the intifada neared its second anniversary.

In Gaza City, an Israeli Apache helicopter gunship fired at least one missile at a taxi, killing two militants inside, Hamas officials said.

Twenty-five bystanders, including 10 children, were wounded, four seriously.

The strike occurred near a children’s hospital in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, where there are also several schools, the sources said.

The attack appeared to be a failed attempt on the life of top Hamas militant Mohammed Deif, who has escaped a number of attacks before.

Hamas denied Israeli reports that Deif had been killed, naming the two men slain as low-ranking militants, Issa Ajarem and Abdelrahman Hamadan.

Their car was left a charred and mangled wreck, and one of the men was blown to pieces.

A political leader of Hamas, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, said the two were rank-and-file members of the group.

The deaths brought the number of people slain in a day of widespread bloodshed to seven.

Fourteen-month-old baby Gharam al-Tel died from teargas inhalation earlier as violent scuffles erupted between Palestinian residents of Al Khalil and Israeli troops trying to impose a lockdown on the Palestinian part of the southern West Bank city.

Near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, on the northwestern boundary with Israel, an Israeli army officer and a Palestinian militant from Hamas were killed in a gunbattle.

The officer was identified by public radio as Captain Arel Marmelstein, while Palestinian security officials named the Hamas man, whose body was found in a cave in Kfar Labad, just east of Tulkarem, as Nashat Abu Jbara, 24.

Abu Jbara had been wanted by Israel for several years, the army said, and was planning to launch new suicide bombings inside Israel.

Earlier in the day, a member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was shot dead while he was trying to enter a Jewish settlement in the northern Gaza Strip.—AFP