Palestinian kills woman in Israel after Gaza strike

By Megan Goldin

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A Palestinian stabbed to death a
woman and wounded five other passengers on a minibus in Israel
on Sunday hours after an Israeli helicopter gunship killed
three militants in the Gaza Strip.

It was the worst outbreak of violence since the militant
Islamic Hamas movement won a Palestinian parliamentary
election, dimming Middle East peace hopes as it prepared to
take over the Palestinian Authority government.

“An Arab boarded a minibus…and took out a knife and began
to stab passengers,” Menashe Aviv, a police commander, told
Army Radio about the attack in Petah Tikva, a city near Tel
Aviv.

He said the assailant, from the West Bank, was disarmed by
passersby and taken to a local police station for
interrogation.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the
attack which occurred on a shared-taxi minibus during the
morning rush hour at the start of the Israeli work week.

Moshe Gershoni, driving his car to Tel Aviv, said he
witnessed the attack while stopped at a red traffic light.

“I saw a kid who looked like an Arab take out a knife and
stab people,” Gershoni told Army Radio. “People grabbed him and
started to beat him up.”

Hours earlier, an Israeli helicopter gunship killed three
Palestinian militants from al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as they
drove in a car in Gaza City.

The army said the Israeli air strike, the first since Hamas
won a January 25 election, was in retaliation for a rocket
attack on Friday against an Israeli collective farm in which
three people were wounded, including a baby.

FUNDS

Militants in Gaza vowed a “painful” revenge to the Israeli
air strike. The Israeli military promised more strikes if
militants rain rockets down on Israeli communities near Gaza.

The international community has demanded that Hamas, which
is behind a suicide bombing campaign, disarm, renounce violence
and revoke its covenant calling for Israel’s destruction.

At stake is over $1 billion in international aid to the
near bankrupt Palestinian Authority, the biggest employer in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip with 140,000 employees on its
payroll.

Meeting Hamas leaders for the first time since the
election, President Mahmoud Abbas told them he would invite
them to head the new government when parliament meets later
this month, an aide said after the talks in Gaza.

Hamas officials said they expected a Hamas-led government
would control at least some of the security services, a
prospect likely to raise alarm in Israel and in Washington.

Israel was expected on Sunday to reverse a decision it made
on February 1 to freeze the transfer of $55 million in taxes
and customs duties it collected on behalf of the Palestinian
Authority in January.

Israel collects about $500 million a year in taxes for the
Palestinian Authority, the main source of funding for the PA’s
budget, but has threatened to curtail transfers if the
government is led by Hamas.