Militants vow revenge for Israeli killing
The bloodied body of Mohammed Sidr was pulled from the rubble of a small warehouse after daybreak, after a stand-off of several hours during which he occasionally traded fire with troops. The military said the warehouse doubled as a bomb laboratory.
Israel accuses Sidr of planning several bombing and shooting attacks, and Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz called him a ticking bomb. In December, Israel tried to kill Sidr in a helicopter strike, but he escaped. Two boys, ages 3 and 13, were killed instead.
The raid began at about midnight, and soldiers repeatedly called on Sidr over loudspeakers to surrender, witnesses said. The army said he fired at troops, and a gunfight ensued.
At one point, an army bulldozer tore down the back wall of the warehouse. Israel Radio said troops fired an anti-tank missile, setting off blasts inside. Sidr apparently was alone. After the body was pulled away, troops blew up the warehouse.
Israel holds Sidr responsible for the deaths of 19 Israelis and two international observers, one from Switzerland and one from Turkey, in several bombings and shootings. Eighty-two people were wounded in these attacks, the Israeli military said.
The Palestinian Authority warned such Israeli operations could destroy the ceasefire. An official statement said the raids are in violation of the US-backed road map peace plan.
Sheikh Bassam Sadi, leader of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, promised revenge. "I assure our people that this crime in Hebron will not go unpunished," he said.
A statement on Islamic Jihad's website said retaliation would be "like an earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity". The killing of two Hamas members under similar circumstances last week led to a revenge attack on Tuesday in which a teenage Hamas suicide bomber killed a Jewish settler.
On the same day, a bomber blew himself up in a central Israeli town, killing himself and a father of two.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority are deadlocked over how to handle the Palestinian militant groups, and the argument is holding up implementation of the road map to Palestinian statehood by 2005. Israel demands the Palestinian Authority dismantles the two main groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as part of its obligations. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas says he will not confront the militants for fear of sparking a civil war.
Israel says it will not go on with the road map under these circumstances, and instead keeps chasing militants.
Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat said the US must intervene quickly to rescue the ceasefire.
"Without a firm stand from the US that the two sides live up to their obligations with one grand gesture that is the immediate implementation of monitoring the ceasefire is finished," he said.
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