ISRAEL: Israeli soldiers foiled a sea-borne Hamas attack on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, the latest effort to avenge the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as angry demonstrations continued in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Arab leaders criticised the United States for blocking a UN Security Council condemnation of the killing.
Three well-armed Hamas gunmen in a boat reached the coastal Gaza settlement of Tel Katifah late on Thursday night, swam ashore in wetsuits and flippers, and opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on a passing car and an army position. Soldiers fired back, killing two of the gunmen, both 18-year-old Gazans, with the third thought to have fled to the sea. Calling the failed attack a "unique naval operation", a Hamas leaflet spoke of more "earth-shaking operations to come". And a senior Damascus-based Hamas official, Khaled Mashaal, addressing 5,000 Hamas supporters at a rally in Ramallah, promised: "We will keep . . . sacrificing our dearest until the occupation leaves our land."
There were similar rallies, and threats of vengeance, in other West Bank cities.
Not far from Nablus, at the Balata refugee camp, a leading member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the group linked with Yasser Arafat's Fatah that has been responsible for most recent suicide bombings inside Israel, was killed when his car blew up.
Palestinian officials indicated that the car was carrying explosives, including a suicide bomber's belt, and that the death of Ahmed al-Abed was probably a "work accident" - a case of a bomb detonating prematurely.
To the south, in Bethlehem's Dehaishe refugee camp, a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops during clashes between stone-throwers and the army, according to Palestinian witnesses.
With demonstrations against the killing of Sheikh Yassin extending to Iran, where 5,000 people rallied to chants of "Death to Israel, death to America", there was anger, too, over the American veto of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned "the most recent extrajudicial execution committed by Israel" along with "all attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction." Eleven nations endorsed the Algerian-drafted resolution; Britain, Germany and Romania abstained.
The US Ambassador to the UN, Mr John Negroponte, said the killing of Sheikh Yassin had "escalated tensions in Gaza and the region, and could set back our effort to resume progress toward peace". But the US was vetoing the resolution, he added, because it did not include condemnation of Hamas suicide bombings. The council should not be turning "a blind eye to everything else occurring in the region", he said.
The Algerian envoy, Abdullah Baali, protested that the council was "not sending the right message to the world, which has unanimously condemned this crime". He said the 22-member Arab Group would now consider bringing the resolution to the General Assembly, where approval would be guaranteed but the statement would be non-binding.
Palestinian Authority Minister Saeb Erekat complained that the US veto would be exploited by Israel "as an encouragement to continue the path of violence, escalation, assassination and reoccupation". Addressing Friday prayers on the Temple Mount, the Muslim cleric Yussuf Abu Sneineh was quoted as citing the US as "the sponsor of international terrorism".
See Weekend Review, page 4: Waiting for the martyrs' vengeance