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Palestinian kills woman in Israel after Gaza strike

Posted on: Sunday, 5 February 2006, 06:51 CST

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.

Source: REUTERS

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