An Israeli missile attack destroyed a house packed with Palestinian women and children in the West Bank today, leaving at least four people dead.
The mid-afternoon raid destroyed the house in the West Bank city of Bethlehem belonging to the Saada family, where eyewitnesses said around 40 people were gathered when Israeli helicopters unleashed five missiles on the building.
Witnesses said 45-year-old Mr Omar Saada, a local leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), was among those killed in the attack that left at least 14 people wounded. At least one child lost an arm in the raid, hospital sources said.
An Israeli military source said the raid was targetted at a Hamas cell in Bethlehem that was planning a massive anti-Israeli attack, possibly to hit the closing ceremony next week of the Maccabiah Games or so-called Jewish Olympics.
"This is a clear cut case of stopping terrorists before they launch attacks against Israelis," the source said.
Another witness said: "The whole family was waiting in the garden. This was a massacre."
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed last week to begin retaliating "on the ground" for every Palestinian attack following the failure of a June 13th ceasefire to put an end to the bloodshed.
The Palestinians have accused Israel of assassinating more than 30 militants by various methods, including bombs and helicopter gunships, since the Palestinian intifada or uprising began almost 10 months ago.
Earlier today, Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat entered talks with a US envoy after a Palestinian suicide bomb attack killed two Israeli soldiers yesterday.
Mr Arafat's meeting with Mr David Satterfield, Washington's new deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, was the second in less than a week.
Mr Satterfield, until recently the US ambassador to Lebanon, met with Mr Arafat on Saturday to discuss ways of ending nearly 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
AFP