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TEL AVIV, March 5: Twelve people were killed in Israel and the occupied territories on Tuesday as the situation threatened to spin out of control.
A home-made Palestinian Qassam rocket for the first time hit a populated area in Israel, while Israeli helicopters pounded Palestinian police headquarters in the West Bank towns of Ramallah and Nablus.
Two Qassam 2 rockets - manufactured by and named after the armed wing of the Hamas group, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades - slightly injured five Israelis when they hit a house in the Negev Desert town of Sderot, Israeli radio said.
Town mayor Elie Moyal told the radio the attack “has created a new situation in the region. All the red lines have been crossed”. He added the rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s extended mini security cabinet decided not to tighten the noose on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, leaving the security setup unchanged.
The day started with an attack on a restaurant in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian, who killed three Israelis and wounded up to 20 before being shot dead himself by police.
Then a Palestinian police official was killed and two others wounded by the Israeli army during an incursion into the Palestinian-controlled area of Dura, near Al Khalil in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said, adding the officials were part of Arafat’s elite Force 17 guard.
Soon afterwards a suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in Afula, northern Israel, also killing one Israeli, police said. He had reportedly boarded the bus in Nazareth and triggered his explosives when the suspicious driver raised the alarm.
The suicide attack was claimed by the hardline group Islamic Jihad.
At about the same time an Israeli woman settler was shot dead near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, army sources said.
The latest unrest put the toll for the past week at more than 80, as hostilities showed no sign of letting up.
Also in the Gaza Strip, a powerful explosion rocked Gaza City, killing one Palestinian and injuring 14. Three buildings were set ablaze in the mysterious blast that occurred in a ground floor store.
CAR ATTACKED: Late into the night, an Israeli helicopter fired two rockets on a car in Ramallah, killing all three people in the car.
All three were members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s elite bodyguard Force 17. One of them was Mohanad Abu Halawa, 23, a guerilla wanted by Israel for the killing of eight Israelis who had already escaped an assassination attempt in August.
The other two were Omar Qaadan, 25 ,and Fawzi Mrar, 27, Palestinian hospital sources said.
They added that a Palestinian who was near the car when it was hit, 20-year-old Rashid Mustafa, was critically injured.
Abu Halawa had escaped an Israeli rocket attack on a convoy carrying West Bank Fatah chief Marwan Barghuti on Aug 4.
POLICE HQ HIT: In three separate operations, Israeli Apaches hit police headquarters across the territories, firing five rockets in Nablus, one in Ramallah and seven in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis.
In the West Bank, 10 Israeli tanks moved into the autonomous Palestinian village of Al Khader near Bethlehem, sparking exchanges of fire with Palestinians.
FUNERAL: In Ramallah, tens of thousands of Palestinians joined a funeral procession for six civilians killed when an Israeli tank missed its target and hit the car of the wife of a radical Hamas official and five children in one of a series of raids in Palestinian areas that left 19 Palestinians dead on Monday.—AFP
