The Israeli army said it had targeted operatives of the
Islamist faction in the latest of track-and-kill sorties
against Palestinian militants.
"The Israeli air force attacked a vehicle transporting
senior Hamas terrorists who were recently involved in numerous
terrorist attacks on Israeli targets and were planning
additional attacks," the army said in a statement.
A Hamas statement acknowledged the three were on "a jihad
mission" and swore revenge, urging a new wave of attacks by all
cells "against the Zionist occupation."
Persistent violence has sidelined a U.S.-backed "road map"
peace plan. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) plans
unilateral moves to evacuate most settlements in Gaza and
retrench behind new "security lines" in what he calls a bid to
defuse conflict.
President Bush (news - web sites) is to send two envoys to Israel next week to
discuss the unilateral plan ahead of an anticipated Washington
trip by Sharon.
Witnesses said at least two missiles incinerated the Hamas
car on a dirt road in an area of scrub desert near Netzarim, an
isolated Jewish settlement often targeted by militants.
"We rushed to the car, trying to extinguish the fire. I
could see two people inside who were moving their hands like
they were pleading for help," a Palestinian witness said.
Sworn to the Jewish state's destruction, Hamas has led a
suicide bombing campaign against Israelis in an uprising that
erupted in 2000 after the collapse of talks on a Palestinian
state on land Israel seized in a 1967 war.
Israel has killed a number of Muslim militants in air
strikes it describes as self-defense but which Palestinians
condemn as state-sponsored assassinations.
The latest strikes followed a suicide bombing on a
Jerusalem bus on February 22 that killed eight people.
PALESTINIAN PM SAYS ATTACK COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie told Reuters: "The
Israeli government's aim is to kill any attempt to restore
quiet and revive the peace process."
Israel blames the Palestinian leadership's failure to rein
in militants hostile to peacemaking for the Middle East
impasse.
In Gaza, 1.3 million Palestinians are squeezed into teeming
urban slums alongside 7,800 Jews in spacious fortified
enclaves.
Sharon wants to uproot most of the 21 exposed settlements
and several more in the West Bank under his "disengagement"
plan, which has inflamed Palestinians because it would strip
them of land they seek for an independent state.
Israel's building in Jewish settlements rose 35 percent
last year despite the peace plan's requirement for a freeze in
construction on territory Israel seized in the 1967 war.
That trend could complicate Sharon's efforts to win U.S.
approval for unilateral "disengagement," given Washington's
concern that it could dash the road map's vision of a viable
Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel.
U.S. officials said Wednesday Assistant Secretary of State
Williams Burns and Stephen Hadley, Bush's deputy national
security adviser, were to go to Israel next week. They are
preparing for a White House meeting between Bush and Sharon,
likely in late March or early April.
Israel's Defense Ministry said six unauthorized settler
outposts in the West Bank could be forcibly evacuated on
Thursday. "This could be a good way of showing good faith
before a Washington trip by Sharon," said one Israeli political
source. (Additional reporting by Wafa Amr and Arshad Mohammed)
