Airstrike kills bodyguard of Islamic Jihad leader

An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile that blew apart a car carrying members of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza City today, killing a bodyguard of the militantgroup’s leader and a 12-year-old boy, witnesses and doctors said.

Also today, four Palestinians were charged in a Palestinian military court with planting explosives that may have killed three Americans travelling in a diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip in October.

Ten people were wounded, three of them critically, in the airstrike today, which ripped apart the front end of a white Peugeot on a busy Gaza street. Palestinian police sources said a pair of helicopters flew over the car and fired at least one missile. Witnesses also heard the roar and boom of F-16 fighter jets breaking the sound barrier over Gaza.

The military said in a statement that the air force ”targeted a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist responsible for the killing of soldiers and who was currently actively involved in planning more terror attacks”.

Israel’s military has routinely sent helicopters and F-16 jets to kill Palestinian militants in pinpoint missile and bombing strikes throughout more than three years of fighting.

The airstrike killed Aziz Mahmoud al-Shami, a top bodyguard and a cousin of the group’s leader, Abdullah Shami, according to officials at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital. The bodyguard was also a well-known member of the group’s violent military wing.

Abdullah Shami, the Islamic Jihad leader, was not in the car. Shortly after the blast, he told The Associated Press that the group, which has carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, would have its revenge.

“The Islamic Jihad movement is a resistance movement and it will respond to this aggression with all its force,” Abdullah Shami said.

The attack also killed Tarek Sousi, a 12-year-old boy on his way to school, doctors said. Three of the wounded were being operated on for shrapnel wounds to the chest and legs, doctors said.

Crowds of onlookers gathered around the wreckage of the car, which caught fire after the strike.

Mohammed Taleb, 36, was a few yards away from the car when it exploded, and he was knocked to the ground. After a moment he ran to the flaming car.

“The driver had lost his leg and he was lying half in and half out of the car bleeding heavily,” Taleb said. “A small boy with his school bag was covered with blood and two other boys were screaming next to him.” Meanwhile, Palestinian authorities charged four men with planting explosives that may have destroyed a US diplomatic car in October, killing three American security guards.

The four men, who appeared before a military court in Gaza City, are accused of planting roadside bombs on a main highway leading into the Gaza Strip from the Erez crossing point with Israel.

A military prosecutor said those bombs were intended to target Israeli tanks entering the Strip, but one of the explosives may have been to blame for the October 15 blast that ripped apart a US diplomatic car.

The court set a February 29 trial date for the four men.