Israel kills top militant in Gaza air strike

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel killed a top Islamic Jihad
commander in an air strike on Sunday and arrested more than 200
suspected militants after warning Palestinians of a crushing
response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

The strike on a car along Gaza’s coastal road was launched
soon after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud party convened
to consider whether he should soon face a leadership election
over a pullout from the territory completed two weeks ago.

The attack killed Mohammed al-Sheikh Khalil, described by
Islamic Jihad as one of its “most senior commanders in
Palestine.” The group called for revenge and its gunmen
threatened to abandon a ceasefire in effect since February.

Khalil’s deputy, who was not immediately identified, was
also killed and four people were wounded, medics said, in part
of the worst surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence since the
Gaza withdrawal.

Earlier, Israel arrested more than 200 suspected militants
in the West Bank as Sharon ordered the army to use any means to
stop rocket salvoes from Gaza.

Likud’s Central Committee convened in Tel Aviv before a
vote on Monday on a motion by Sharon’s rightist challenger,
Benjamin Netanyahu, to bring the party’s primary forward to
November.

A party official announced Khalil’s death from the podium,
drawing applause. Sharon’s opponents in the Likud have said the
Gaza pullout after five years of Palestinian violence would
only bring more cross-border attacks on Israel.

The party vote could turn Israeli politics on its head.

Sharon, who wants the party primary held closer to national
parliamentary elections due by late next year, has said
“radical extremists” have taken control of the Likud, which he
helped to found three decades ago.

He has declined to say whether he would remain in the party
if the 3,000-member Central Committee vote goes against him,
raising speculation he may bolt and form a new centrist
alliance that would tap into mainstream support for the Gaza
pullout.

ASSASSINATIONS

In helicopter strikes on Saturday, Israel killed two
militants and wounded 20 other Palestinians. A helicopter also
targeted a building in northern Gaza on Sunday which the
military said was used by militants.

Violence surged when a blast on Friday killed 16 people at
a Hamas rally in Gaza. One of the victims, a 12-year-old
Palestinian boy, died of his wounds on Sunday.

Hamas blamed Israel and militants fired at least 40 rockets
into the Jewish state in response, though Israel denied
responsibility and the Palestinian Authority said it appeared
to be an accident caused by Hamas members carrying explosives.

Sharon ordered the army to do whatever it saw fit after his
inner cabinet approved a resumption in assassinations of top
militants, suspended in February, and gave a green light for
troops to shell Gaza to stop attacks.

“We don’t intend here to stage a one-time action, but
intend to carry out a continued action, whose aim is to hurt
the terrorists and not to let up,” he told ministers.

Troops were poised outside the Gaza Strip for a possible
ground offensive. In a show of strength, artillery units
practiced near the boundary. Israeli media said the army
operation was dubbed “First Rain.”

Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to wreck hopes
of reviving peace talks that were kindled by the Gaza pullout.

President Mahmoud Abbas said that if Sharon had ordered the
army to use full force it meant: “He doesn’t want peace, or
security, or negotiations.”

(Additional reporting by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem and
Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)