MIDDLE EAST: The Israeli military killed a Palestinian militant in a missile strike on a car in the Gaza Strip yesterday as Ariel Sharon pressed ahead with his "broad and continuous" offensive in the occupied territories in response to this week's suicide bombing that killed five Israelis.
Palestinians identified the dead man as Majid Natat (28), a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The Israeli military said his car was hit because it believed he was on his way to launch a mortar attack against Israel. Earlier in the day, Palestinians fired three mortars into Israel without causing casualties.
The US urged Israel to act cautiously in responding to Wednesday's suicide bombing in Hadera. But Silvan Shalom, Israel's foreign minister, said the army would not be restrained. "The message cannot be one of silence and restraint after such a terrible attack," he told Israel radio.
"The terror organisations must know that we will continue to hunt them everywhere, all the time."
Yesterday's missile attack came shortly after the funerals of eight people who died in a similar Israeli strike on a car on Thursday, including three teenage boys aged 14 to 17, who were innocent bystanders. The targets of the attack, two Islamic Jihad commanders, were also killed along with three other civilians.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights yesterday described the escalation of Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip as creating "an atmosphere of war".
Earlier this week, the Palestinian government said it would disarm the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of the ruling Fatah party. - (Guardian Service)