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Israeli Helicopters Wound 14 In Attack In Gaza
JABALIA CAMP, Gaza Strip, May 16 (News Agencies) - Israeli helicopters launched missile strikes late Wednesday on Palestinian security buildings at a Gaza Strip refugee camp, wounding 14 civilians, security and medical sources said.
The explosions could be heard in the center of Gaza City. Witnesses and the army also reported an Israeli raid on a security building in the Palestinian self-rule town of Jenin in the West Bank.
Helicopters blasted two missiles into a police station and four missiles into a security building in the Gaza refugee camp of Jabalia, a senior Palestinian security source told AFP on condition he not be named.
Witnesses said a missile hit a generator at the camp, cutting off power. Palestinian television said two missiles had not exploded.
An AFP photographer on the scene said gaping holes several meters (yards) high appeared in the top floor of a two-story building which houses some of the offices belonging to the preventive security service.
Colonel Mohammed Dahlan, who heads preventive security for the Gaza Strip, visited the scene saying the "Israeli aim is to make the Palestinians yield to their demands. The Palestinian people are not afraid."
There were also smaller holes punched in the buildings, with rubble strewn everywhere by the camp just north of Gaza City.
Ambulances took women, children and men to area hospitals.
The 14 wounded were not in a serious condition, medical sources said. Other people were treated for shock.
A crowd of around 2,000 people later converged on the scene, cursing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his chief of staff Shaul Mofaz as three helicopters continued to hover overhead.
While visiting Tunisia with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, top aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said that Israel must stop its attacks, the third it has launched on the Gaza Strip in a week.
"We want Israel to not continue the rocketing and aggression against Palestinian security and civilian buildings," Abu Rudeina said.
"Today's rocketing of the police station and preventive security building in Jabalia is not helping the peace process, but increasing the tension," he added.
"We put all the responsibility on the Sharon government for the consequences of this attack on this refugee camp and [say] this escalation aims to destroy all international efforts aimed to bring quiet to the region," he said.
In the West Bank, witnesses said helicopters attacked and damaged the headquarters of the Palestinian national security in charge of scientific issues.
Several missiles also fell in a nearby refugee camp, but no casualties were reported in that raid, witnesses said.
The army said helicopters attacked the Jenin building because it was "in charge of the development and production of arms and mortar launchers."
Israeli public radio said the raid also cut off electricity for Jenin residents.
Israeli helicopters fired missiles overnight Sunday at Palestinian targets across Gaza, including some close to Arafat's offices, in the most extensive attack in seven months of violence.
Fifteen people were wounded slightly in the raids that targeted nine Palestinian security and administrative buildings across the Gaza Strip.
That attack was accompanied by shelling from Israeli warships off the Mediterranean coast and from tanks on security posts at the Rafah refugee camp in the southern tip of the Strip.
Last Thursday, Israeli forces fired ground-to-ground missiles into Palestinian security targets in Gaza City.
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