GAZA, Feb 4: Four Palestinian guerillas were killed when their car was blown up in the Gaza Strip on Monday and a fifth standing nearby also died in the blast. Palestinians and an Israeli security source said the blast was caused by Israel.
The killings raised tensions three days before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets US President George W. Bush in Washington. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), a radical Palestinian Marxist faction which the men belonged to, vowed to avenge their deaths.
Major Khaled Abu al-Ula, a senior Palestinian security official, said an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at the car. An Israeli security source said it was booby-trapped.
“This means it (Israel) does not want calm. It wants the continuation of the escalation against our mighty people,” Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said while talking to reporters at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“When we reached the area, the car was on fire and the bodies were burning,” said Mohammed Kishta, a farmer who rushed to the scene on a rural road near the Rafah refugee camp, close to the border with Egypt.
He said he heard an unmanned drone aircraft, used for reconnaissance, flying overhead after the blast.
CALL FOR REVENGE: The incident further dented any optimism raised by Sharon’s surprise meeting last week with senior Palestinian officials, his first such talks since he was elected a year ago.
“Our front-line fighters will carry out a fierce retaliation,” DFLP spokesman Talal Abu Tharifa said. Four of the men ranged in age from 25 to 29.
Israeli missile strikes that have killed guerillas accused by Israel of carrying out bombings have in the past unleashed revenge attacks.
The car blast followed an Israeli helicopter missile strike at what Israel said was a Palestinian mortar bomb factory in Jabalya refugee camp, near Gaza City. There were no casualties.
The army reported Palestinians had fired two mortar bombs on Sunday at a Jewish settlement, causing no injuries or damage.
Arafat had pledged in a peace manifesto published in The New York Times on Sunday ahead of the talks on Thursday between Bush and Sharon to crack down on what he called “terrorist groups” that attack Israeli civilians.
The Palestinian leader has been confined to Ramallah by Israeli tanks since mid-December. Sharon has said he will lift the siege only when Arafat hands over the killers of an Israeli minister assassinated in October.—Reuters