Smoke rises after an Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a car carrying two Hamas members in Gaza city

Additional Reporting By Sami Khuwayera, IOL Correspondent

GAZA, June 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The two Palestinian and Israeli attacks on Wednesday, June 11, that left more than 32 people killed and scores injured, dealt a heavy blow to an already-shaky Middle East peace process.

In a western street of occupied Jerusalem, sixteen people were killed and more than 70 others injured when an explosion ripped through a bus, one day after eight Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire in separate attacks and a foiled attempt on a Hamas leader’s life that drew world-wide condemnation even from the U.S.

Few minutes afterwards, seven Palestinians were killed, including two Hamas members, when Israeli helicopters fired missiles on the densely-populated Gaza City, leaving charred bodies as a clear tragic reminder for Palestinians.

“Israel should realize that targeting civilians or military men would be met with a response of the same kind, and Rantissi’s assassination attempt would not pass off without punishment,” Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Al-Jazeera news network.

Rantissi is the public figure of Hamas, and the foiled attempt to kill him came after his group agreed to discuss ceasefire with the newly-appointed Palestinian government.

The Israeli attack on Rantissi’s car put all peace efforts at a standstill and freeze any movement on the path of “the roadmap” plan for defusing the tension.

Few hours before the two attacks, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Abbas as part of a bid to broker a truce between Palestinian resistance groups and Israel.

But to talk about a ceasefire now is nothing but “meaningless and absurd,” in the words of Ismail Haniya, a Hamas leader.

“Israel tries to drag us into a trap by escalating its military aggressions against Palestinian areas, killing eight people on Tuesday and seven others on Wednesday,” Arafat said.

Condemning the two attacks on Palestinian and Israeli targets as “terrorist”, Arafat said in a statement that “the Jewish state wants to destroy the peace process.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman Raanan Gissin said his country was committed to peace "but this attack today is another grim reminder that without real concerted effort to stop terrorist activity, both people ... cannot move forward on the roadmap."

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ plans to convince Palestinian factions into laying down their weapons is now nothing but an unexpected conclusion, with Sharon’s orders to target Intifada leaders.

Struggle ‘Continued’

After the Gaza attack, Hamas rejected calls by Arafat and Abbas for a ceasefire with Israel.

"Two members of our movement Tito Massud, from Jabalya refugee camp, and Soheil Abu Nehal, from the Shati camp were assassinated Wednesday and we are going to continue the armed struggle," the group’s armed wing Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nabil Shaath said that the newly-appointed government would not take any action against Palestinian factions as long as Israel did not honor its commitments.

“We will not take any action against any Palestinian groups until Israel first makes good on its commitments,” Shaath told Al-Jazeera.

Condemnations

“We will not take any action against any Palestinian groups until Israel first makes good on its commitments,” Shaath

Meanwhile, the international community moved to condemn a fresh day of violence in the region, with repeated calls to end the quagmire both sides are now bogged down into.

U.S. President George W. Bush denounced the Jerusalem bombing and urged "all of the free world" to use "every ounce of their power" to prevent such attacks in the future.

Bush condemned  the Jerusalem attack, one day after he said he was “deeply troubled” by the Israeli helicopter attack on Hamas’s Rantissi, and which the White House said was a violation of the roadmap and threatening efforts to break the deadly cycle of violence in the region.

"I strongly condemn the killings, and I urge and call upon all of the free world, nations which love peace, to not only condemn the killings but to use every ounce of their power to prevent them from happening in the future," the visibly agitated president said in a brief statement to reporters.

"It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace; people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in (security) and peace don't happen; who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and others of a peaceful state, living side by side with Israel, do not happen," said Bush.

A week ago, Bush invested considerable personal capital in the peace process by vowing after a joint summit in Aqaba, Jordan, to hold Israelis and Palestinians to the so-called "roadmap" he hopes will break a deadly cycle of violence that erupted in September 2000.

Europeans Join Hands

European leaders sharply condemned the Wednesday attacks, warning against a derailment of the Middle East peace process.

Greece, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union (E.U.), fiercely condemned the Jerusalem attack, and voiced fears about the new explosion of violence in the Middle East.

European Union foreign policy coordinator Javier Solana said in Brussels the atrocity threatened the E.U.-backed “roadmap” for peace.

The French government described the latest bombing as an act of barbarism without any justification whatsoever.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller appealed in Copenhagen for the peace process to continue, saying "extremists must not kill this process."

Earlier in the day, the Greek E.U. presidency had issued a statement condemning Israel's helicopter gunship attacks on Gaza on Tuesday.

"This kind of retaliation and extra-judicial killings perpetuate the cycle of violence and further deteriorate the security environment," it said of the Israeli attacks

"These attacks, that coincide with the first steps of the implementation of the roadmap... undermine the peace efforts and complicate further attempts by Abbas to halt violence and “terrorism” by Palestinian factions," the presidency added.

In Copenhagen Danish Foreign Minister Moeller described the violence as a dreadful tragedy.

"It outlines only that there are people who don't want peace," he said: "We knew it all along, and it's absolutely essential now to have the political courage to pursue the peace process and not let the extremists decide," he was quoted by Ritzau news agency as saying.