Israeli helicopters have fired missiles at a car in Gaza City, killing a senior Islamic militant and wounding some 25 other Palestinians in the latest violence threatening a US-backed peace plan.
Relatives identified the dead man as Khader al-Husari, a senior member of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the militant Hamas group. Hamas sources said two other senior Qassam members were among the wounded.
It was the sixth such helicopter attack over the past two weeks. Israel has now killed 11 militants and three bystanders in the strikes in the Gaza Strip - bloodshed coinciding with the collapse of a truce that had underpinned the peace "road map".
Israeli helicopters last attacked on Saturday, killing Abdullah Aqel, leader of the armed wing of the militant Islamic group Hamas in central Gaza.
Islamic militants renounced a seven-week-old truce on August 21st, two days after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up an Israeli bus in Jerusalem, killing 21 people. Israel then stepped up missile attacks, which Palestinians call assassinations.
The United States, which has urged Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to dismantle militant groups as mandated by the peace plan, has largely kept to the diplomatic sidelines during the latest surge in violence.
The road map charts a course towards an end to nearly three years of bloodshed and creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
In a long-awaited report that could put more strain on relations between Israeli Arabs and Jews, an Israeli state inquiry today reprimanded police for killing 13 Israeli Arabs in pro-Palestinian protests three years ago.
But the findings by the Or Commission did not recommend any action against then-prime minister Mr Ehud Barak, clearing any legal barriers to a widely expected attempt at a political comeback by the former Labour Party leader.
Israeli Arab groups denounced the report as a whitewash that failed to punish politicians overseeing police who shot live ammunition at citizens of the Jewish state during stone-throwing demonstrations.
The creation of the commission into the deaths in October 2000, soon after the start of the latest Palestinian uprising for independence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was widely seen as an attempt to appease Israel's outraged Arab minority.
After nearly three years of testimony, the commission found that police commanders committed errors of judgement when their forces opened fire on stone-throwing Arab demonstrators in Israel's northern Galilee region.
The three-member Supreme Court panel recommended the dismissal of several top officers and that others no longer be allowed to hold senior security posts. Israeli Arabs, who make up 18 per cent of the population of Israel, have long complained of institutionalised discrimination.