JABALIYA, Aug 26: One Palestinian was killed and more than 20 others wounded on Tuesday in a failed Israeli helicopter strike on two militants in the northern Gaza Strip.

The strike came as Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Gaza for meetings on Wednesday with the moderate Palestinian leadership mulling how to seize the initiative in cracking down on militant groups.

Palestinian sources said two attack helicopters fired a volley of rockets just outside the town of Jabaliya, targeting two militants of the Hamas group, but killing instead a 60-year-old passerby.

An eyewitness said one car was completely destroyed, but quoted witnesses as saying the three or four occupants escaped. Several other cars were also damaged.

Medical sources said many of the more than 20 wounded were women or children. One of the men injured had been driving a cart pulled by a donkey who was killed in the strike, they said.

The Hamas identified the targets as Wahel Ikalan and Khaled Massoud, both members of its armed wing, who escaped. Israeli public radio said Massoud was an expert in building Qassam rockets lobbed by militants from Gaza into Israel.

An adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said the Israeli attacks had “taken the situation back to zero” and that the Palestinian leadership could now ask for an emergency debate at the UN Security Council on “the escalation”.

The Israeli army refused comment on the raid.

The raid came two days after four Hamas members were killed by rocket fire. A top Hamas leader, Ismail Abu Shanab, was slain with two bodyguards on Thursday in the first of a series of attacks that has the Palestinians vowing vengeance.

Israel swore to press its campaign of “targeted killings” after a suicide bomb killed 21 passengers, including several children, on a bus last week. Israeli officials said no militant was safe. —AFP