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Israeli Attacks Continue on the Eve of U.S. Peace Mission
GAZA CITY, Nov. 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli helicopters blasted three Palestinian towns and Israeli forces killed a 13-year old Palestinian boy as a new U.S. peace mission in the region is set to begin Tuesday, news agencies reported.
The boy's death was the latest in a series of Israeli attacks following Friday's assassination of Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hanoud.
The Israeli military helicopters Monday launched three missiles in a new attack on Palestinian targets across the Gaza Strip, wounding at least three people, reported BBC's online news service.
Hours after the night raids on Palestinian security targets in Beit Lahia, Deir El-Balah and Khan Younis, in the northern, central and southern Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation troops shot dead a 13-year-old Palestinian protester.
Israeli forces also shot a Palestinian pregnant woman in the stomach as she was crossing Gaza's southern border with Egypt, Palestinian officials said.
The revenge that Hamas promised for Hanoud's assassination began Saturday when an Israeli soldier was killed in a mortar attack against a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas also claimed responsibility Monday for a bombing in the northern Gaza Strip, when a Hamas member blew himself up and injured two Israeli border guards.
"We announce that the martyr, Taysir Elajerami, carried out this operation," the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, said in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse (AFP). It added that the bomber had "insisted" on sacrificing his life.
The newest Israeli attacks ended a period of relative calm just before the arrival of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns, and retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, to work toward a new
ceasefire, reported the Saudi daily newspaper, Arab News.
In Riyadh, meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority have urgently called for international observers to be deployed to the Israeli-occupied territories to protect Palestinians, Palestinian ambassador Mustafa Dib said Monday.
The call came from a meeting between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz late Sunday, reported AFP.
"The two leaders agreed on the urgent need to deploy international observers in the Palestinian territory to protect the Palestinian people against Israeli aggressions," Dib said.
"Views were identical on working out a mechanism to implement President George W. Bush's call for a Palestinian state and Secretary of State Colin Powell's plan for a ceasefire," he added.
Arafat and Crown Prince Abdullah also urged Israel to implement the Mitchell report, which contains guidelines for returning the two sides to the negotiating table and to stop the systematic Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians.
The Palestinian Authority president, who arrived in Riyadh late Sunday, discussed with King Fahd ways to revive the stalled Middle East peace process and reviewed "Israeli practices that escalate violence in a bid to escape the peace process."
Arafat thanked King Fahd for Saudi Arabia's policy, which " played an active role in moving the U.S. position towards a Palestinian state," said Dib.
The Saudi royal family had been critical of the White House's cool approach to the 14-month Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, before the deadly September 11 attacks on the United States.
Arafat, who began an Arab tour by visiting Egypt on Sunday ahead of a decisive meeting Wednesday with the new U.S. envoys to the Middle East, was due to leave Riyadh for Amman later Monday.
Washington's envoys, Burns and Zinni, are expected to make a bid to revive the battered ceasefire initiative.
They are expected to press both sides to implement the terms of a cease-fire that was negotiated five months ago by American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet. The ceasefire has never been implemented.
Tenet's plan called on Israel to cease military incursions into Palestinian towns, stop killing Palestinians, and lift travel restrictions between the Palestinian-ruled areas.
In another development, a Hamas rally in Abu Hanoud's memory drew an estimated crowd of 30,000 people, in Gaza City.
Hamas called on Palestinians to shun U.S. and European peace efforts and press ahead with their uprising to end Israel's long military occupation.
Nearly 1,000 people, the majority of them Palestinians, have been killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000, shortly after peace talks stalled.
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