Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least three missiles at the main Palestinian police compound in Gaza City today, wounding seven policemen in what the Israeli army called an attack on a mortar bomb workshop.
A Palestinian police officer said the missiles had targeted a weapons storage room in the compound but also hit a bathroom and a separate police structure, shattering windows and destroying furniture.
"The new Israeli crime will never harm the strong will of the Palestinian people to achieve freedom and will not stop the resistance to occupation," Mr Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, an aide to Mr Arafat, said.
The helicopters took to the air hours after a nine-year-old Israeli girl was wounded by shrapnel from a mortar bomb that fell on the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip.
Last night, six Palestinians were killed and another another injured by an explosionnear the Farahrefugee camp in the Nablus region of the West Bank, hospital sourcessaid today.
The six were said to be members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,an armed faction of Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat's Fatahmovement. They were wanted by Israeli authorities in connection withseveral anti-Israeli attacks.
Earlier, a Palestinian security source, blaming Israel for theexplosion, said five men had died, all aged between 24 and27.
Last week, Al-Aqsa Brigade claimed responsibility for the killingof a young Israeli whose body was found in the West Bank town ofRamallah.
It was unclear what the six Palestinians who died in the powerfulexplosion were doing in a garage near the Farah camp.
The overnight blast followed a day of violence in Jerusalem.
Israeli riot police stormed one of the world's holiest sites inJerusalem after Palestinians threw stones at Jewishworshippers after a rally by extremist Jews.
Police used tear gas and stun grenades to quell the violence,which erupted after Israeli ultra-nationalists laid a symboliccornerstone for a new Jewish temple near the al-Aqsa mosquecompound, infuriating Muslims worldwide.
AFP