Palestinians accuse Israel of war crimes

Palestinians today claimed Israel was guilty of war crimes after Israeli helicopter gunships killed a militant suspected of attacks against it.

Four helicopters yesterday fired rockets at a car in the town of Jenin, on the northern edge of the West Bank, killing Moutasem Sabee, 26, an activist from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group, and Ala’a Jaloudi, a policeman who was standing nearby. Palestinians said 17 people were wounded.

Fares Kadoura, a Palestinian legislator, said execution without trial was a war crime. ‘‘It is an international crime. It is terrorism carried out by a state,’’ he told Israeli army radio.

But Israeli Science Minister Matan Vilnai said pinpoint killings were legal.

’’They are not assassinations. We are hitting the people who attack us or are planning attacks,’’ claimed Vilnai, a retired general and a member of the security cabinet.

’’If you are fired on and you fire back, that is self-defence. So if you do it ten minutes earlier, is that not self-defence?’’

Meanwhile, Israel and the Palestinians were considering two plans aimed at bringing an end to more than seven months of conflict.

The United States has welcomed both proposals: an Egyptian-Jordanian initiative and a report by an international commission that studied the causes of the conflict and possible solutions.

The Palestinians have accepted the plans but Israel raised objections to calls for a halt to construction inside Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Arafat’s deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, is to meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell this week, according to Hasan Abdel Rahman, the Palestinian representative in Washington.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has met President George W Bush at the White House but Arafat himself has not been invited to Washington.

Palestinian Economics Minister Nabil Shaath said the talks in Washington were ‘‘very important. It’s not important who invites whom’’.

At today’s session of Israel’s Cabinet, the military chief of staff, Lt Gen Shaul Mofaz, said his instructions were to restrict the activities of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority but not bring about its collapse, Israel radio reported.

In Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a leader of militant group Hamas, was today released from a Palestinian prison, said Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu-Shanab.

Arafat’s police have arrested Rantissi many times, releasing him after holding him in prison, sometimes for several months. This time he was detained for a week after criticising Palestinian Authority policy.

The radio report said Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi recommended bombing all Palestinian weapons factories without warning and destroying Palestinian TV and radio stations, which, he said, were inciting the population to kill Jews.

Israeli helicopter gunships fired the rockets in yesterday’s attack but the Israeli military would make no official comment.

The first rocket missed the car, and three other members of the armed militia known as Tanzim were able to escape without serious injury, including Abdel Karim Awais, apparently the main target.

Awais, 30, leads a group of gunmen and was thought to be planning mortar attacks on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. A Fatah leaflet said Sabee was the head of a mortar-firing group and Awais was the commander of the cell.

There were reports that a mortar was fired at Kadim, a Jewish settlement near Jenin, on May 2, but the shell was never found. Dozens of mortar shells have been fired at settlements in Gaza.

Israel has acknowledged responsibility for some of the pinpoint killings but has refused comment on others.

Palestinian officials and Israeli newspapers say 22 militants have been killed in the operations since the conflict erupted last September.

In the fighting, 441 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 77 on the Israeli side.