Israel vows war on Hamas 'to bitter end'
With his peace "road map" threatened by Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed 38 people in two days, US President George W Bush planned to send a veteran US diplomat to Israel this weekend to try to stem the bloodshed.
In the latest violence, gunmen fired at an Israeli car near the Jewish settlement of Neve Tzuf in the West Bank, wounding two women, one of them seriously, witnesses said.
"As a government responsible for the security of its citizens, we must wage a war to the bitter end (against Hamas) because no one else, at least at this stage, will do it," Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Army Radio.
But a poll in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily found 67% of Israelis wanted what the survey termed the "assassination policy" to stop, at least temporarily, to give new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas a chance to grow stronger. Keeping up pressure on Hamas, which opposes the existence of the Jewish state, Israel launched a helicopter missile strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday that killed seven people, including senior militant Yasser Taha, his wife and one-year-old daughter.
At their funerals yesterday, gunmen fired in the air and a loudspeaker blared: "God's revenge is coming soon and the Zionists will pay the price of their crimes." In separate incidents near the West Bank city of Jenin, gunmen killed an Israeli civilian buying charcoal in a Palestinian village and soldiers shot dead two militants.
Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for the Israeli's death.
On Wednesday, helicopter gunships killed four militants and seven bystanders in Gaza, after a Hamas suicide bomber killed 17 on a Jerusalem bus, an attack that followed the wounding of senior Hamas figure Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a missile strike.
US officials said Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf would leave for Jerusalem as early as today, to lead a US team that will monitor progress under the road map and meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders. It will be Wolf's first trip to the region since Mr Bush announced his appointment at a summit with Mr Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Aqaba, Jordan, on June 4.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to attend a June 22 meeting, probably in Amman, with representatives of the United Nations, Russia and the EU, the international quartet that drafted the road map.
The plan calls for an end to violence and the start of confidence-building steps, including a Palestinian crackdown on militants and an Israeli freeze in settlement construction on occupied land, before creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Mr Abbas has sought to negotiate a deal with Hamas to end its attacks on Israelis. Hamas broke off talks last week.
In what it called a message to "terrorists and their accomplices", the Israeli army demolished the family house of the Jerusalem bus bomber, Abdel-Mua'ti Shabana, 18, in the West Bank city of Hebron, leaving nine people homeless. The army also destroyed another militant's home in the West Bank village of Dura.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
