GAZA CITY, Aug 27: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called on Wednesday on hardliners to renew their commitment to a ceasefire which was shattered by last week’s Al Quds bus bomb as Israel vowed to continue assassinating the militants.

Mr Arafat’s intervention, which followed an appeal by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, came as prime minister Mahmud Abbas convened an emergency cabinet session to discuss the security crisis.

“President Yasser Arafat calls on all groups and parties to commit themselves...to the ceasefire to give a chance to all peaceful international efforts for the implementation of the roadmap,” a statement on the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

Mr Arafat accused Israel of rejecting the US-backed roadmap for peace by “escalating” its attacks against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But he called on the factions to make a new commitment to the ceasefire to “stop the war, the killing, the assassinations and daily military escalation”.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad both called off a seven-week-old truce last week after Israel killed Hamas co-founder Ismail Abu Shanab in retaliation for the suicide bombing of an Al Quds bus that left 21 people dead.

Mr Powell, whose government has refused to negotiate with Mr Arafat, called on the veteran leader last week to work with Mr Abbas to end the upsurge in violence. A senior Israeli goverment official said on Wednesday that Israel would continue the targeted killing of militants despite a botched air strike on Tuesday evening which left an elderly passer-by dead.

“Our liquidation operations are going to continue against everyone implicated in terrorist attacks, in the preparation of attacks or in the firing of rockets,” he told AFP.

“No terrorist should expect to benefit from the least impunity,” the official added. “We will continue to act when and where we judge useful, with all means necessary, until the Palestinian Authority decides to fight the terrorists as it is committed to doing.”

An elderly Palestinian was killed on Tuesday evening and more than 20 others wounded in a failed helicopter strike in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hamas said the targets had been Wael Akilan and Khaled Massoud, two members of the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

The army said the raid had targeted Mr Massoud, who it said had fired Qassam rockets into Israel.

Military sources said that an Israeli soldier on Wednesday shot dead a young Palestinian who what they claimed had run at him with a knife at a checkpoint near Bethlehem. It was not known if he belonged to any faction.—AFP