Israel launches air strikes, kills 4 Gaza militants

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel launched two air strikes in the
Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing four Palestinian militants in
the latest of a series of military attacks since a suicide
bombing in the Jewish state last week.

The missile strikes occurred against a backdrop of clashes
between rival gunmen of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s
Fatah movement in a new sign of turmoil before parliamentary
elections in January.

The air raids and Palestinian cross-border rocket attacks
added to a spiral of violence that has diminished chances of
resuming peace efforts, on hold as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon prepares to campaign for re-election in a March poll.

Israel said it had delayed implementation of a
U.S.-brokered deal to allow bus convoys between Gaza and the
West Bank from Thursday until next week because of security
concerns. The United States has proposed European monitoring of
the deal.

Sharon, who quit his rightist Likud party last month to
form a new centrist movement, wants to counter rightist
opponents’ accusations that Israel’s Gaza pullout in September
was a reward to militants and showed he was soft on the
Palestinians.

Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft fired on a car near the
Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel, killing three members
of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a militant
coalition, and one from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed
group in Fatah.

Hours later, Khader Habib, a political leader of militant
group Islamic Jihad, survived a similar strike in Gaza City.

REVENGE VOW

PRC spokesman Abu Abir vowed revenge for the attack, saying
Israelis in the border town of Sderot should “flee their homes
because soon our rockets will target them.”

Al-Aqsa said it fired three rockets into Israel, and the
PRC said it fired two. There were no immediate reports of
damage.

An Israeli military spokesman said the PRC members were
planning a car bombing at a border terminal. Regarding the
second, botched air strike, the military spokesman said it had
targeted members of Islamic Jihad blamed for shelling Israel.

Israel launched a new campaign of air strikes after an
Islamic Jihad suicide bomber killed five Israelis at a shopping
mall on December 5.

In the third straight day of internal fighting in Gaza,
dozens of al-Aqsa gunmen poured into Fatah’s Gaza headquarters
to demand jobs, and ended up exchanging fire with armed rivals.

The violence highlighted escalating divisions in Fatah
before the Palestinian elections in January in which the Hamas
militant group is expected to mount a serious challenge to
Fatah’s traditional dominance in parliament.

A flare-up of election related violence in Gaza on Tuesday
prompted Palestinian election officials to suspend operations,
but Gaza offices reopened on Wednesday after security forces
were deployed outside to protect them.

The elections are viewed as a test of Abbas’s leadership.
Abbas is struggling to contain unrest in Gaza where factions
are vying for sway after Israel’s pullout in September after 38
years of occupation.

Militants, worried they will not be fairly represented on
Fatah’s ticket following complaints about the handling of the
ruling party’s primary ballot, have stormed election offices in
the past few days demanding a delay in the January 25 poll.

They want elections postponed so Fatah can repeat party
primary votes that were halted in some areas following fraud
allegations and violence by gunmen, some from al-Aqsa.

The gunmen, who spent years battling Israel but sometimes
felt marginalised in Fatah due to the dominance of “Old Guard”
leaders, fear unless Fatah picks its candidates in a popular
vote it would have a hard time beating Hamas in the elections.

Abbas has vowed to hold the elections on time.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Wafa
Amr in Ramallah)