Israeli helicopters attack Palestinian targets in Gaza Strip

Israeli helicopters attacked Palestinian police and security facilities in several places in the Gaza Strip early today, according to eyewitnesses and officials on both sides.

The latest violence raised fears of further turmoil just one day before the two American peace envoys were due to arrive in the region.

At Khan Younis, in the south of the Strip, 20 Palestinians were injured, two of them by shrapnel.

An 11-year-old boy was hurt when a wall collapsed on him, hospital officials said.

Palestinian police said more than 12 missiles fired by the helicopters struck a military intelligence position and an office of Force 17, in Khan Younis.

At Deir el-Ballah, in the central Gaza Strip, the regional office of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party was struck and at Sudaniye in the northern Gaza Strip the headquarters of the Palestinian naval police was struck by missiles.

In addition, several Apache helicopters hovered over Gaza City, eyewitnesses said.

Ambulances rushed to the naval police facility and rescue teams searched through the rubble, but there were no immediate reports of casualties there.

At Khan Younis people were on their way to the mosques for the early morning prayers conducted during the holy month of Ramadan, when the attack came.

People gathered in small groups and began shouting "Allahu Akbar - God is great," eyewitnesses said.

At Deir el-Ballah, children watched as firefighters searched the remains of their portable housing, damaged when helicopters targeted the neighbouring Fatah office.

Firefighter Adli Suleiman said: "I was getting ready for morning prayers, when I heard the helicopter. I looked out the window and I saw a red flame coming toward me."

At least five missiles hit the buildings as he escaped, Suleiman said.

In Sudaniye, Palestinian naval police examined damage caused by missiles which penetrated the ceiling and one wall of their temporary headquarters which is just yards from the rubble of the original headquarters, destroyed by Israeli warplanes in a May 15 retaliation for a suicide bombing.

The air strikes came hours after an Israeli soldier was killed and two were wounded in a mortar attack on the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, near Khan Younis.

The Islamic militant Hamas group issued a statement admitting responsibility for the attack.

The Israeli army spokesman said the air attack was a reaction to repeated mortar attacks by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.

More than 70 mortars had been fired in the past month, the army spokesman said in a press release.

The head of the Palestinian Public Security in the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Abdel Malik el-Majeide said: "This dangerous Israeli escalation comes on the eve of the arrival of American peace envoys and is aimed at sabotaging American and international efforts to revive the peace process."

The two American mediators, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni were due to arrive in the region tomorrow in an effort to revive a truce deal and re-start peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The air strikes were the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on Palestinian militants.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians yesterday called for vengeance at the funeral of a senior militant in the Islamic Hamas group who died, with two other Hamas activists, when a helicopter attacked their car.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the senior militant, Mahmoud Abu-Hanoud, had been responsible for the deaths of scores of Israelis in suicide bombing attacks which he had masterminded, and added that Israel was acting in self-defence when it killed him.

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Abu-Hanoud was planning new attacks and it was inconceivable not to have killed him, even on the eve of the American peace mission.

Abu-Hanoud had survived previous Israeli attempts to kill or capture him.

At the funeral, the local Hamas leader, Teissir Imran, told the mourners that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "has opened the door to hell, for himself and his people".

The Hamas military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, said in a leaflet that it is "committed to avenging the blood of one of our leaders".

But the Palestinian Authority called on Hamas and all Palestinian groups to exercise restraint.

It said in a communiqué that Israel’s aim in killing Abu Hanoud was to sabotage the peace mission of two American mediators.

The authority welcomed the current American and European diplomatic involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and urged Palestinians to encourage this development by avoiding violence.

"We call on all our people ... to think deeply about ... these Israeli plans and to turn their anger and pain into ... steadfastness, to thwart the ... Israeli plans and encourage this international change of heart," the statement said.