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Israel launches strikes
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PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat said on Thursday Israeli air strikes would not halt the six-month-old Palestinian uprising and Palestinians fought new clashes with Israeli troops.
Three Palestinians, two of them teenagers, were killed in the latest violence in the Gaza Strip and Arafat's Fatah movement threatened for the first time to launch attacks inside Israel to avenge raids by helicopter gunships on Wednesday.
Arafat's Gaza home was damaged in Wednesday's helicopter missile attacks on Gaza and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's first military response to a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings inside Israel.
“The Israeli bombardment, aggression and closure of our cities, villages and bases will not affect the determination of our people to keep the Al-Aqsa uprising going," Arafat said in Ramallah on his return from an Arab summit in Jordan.
Inspecting damage caused by the helicopter strikes on his return from an Arab summit in Jordan, Arafat said the Intifada, or uprising, would continue “until the Palestinian flag is raised on the walls, churches and mosques of holy Jerusalem.”
Two people were killed during the lightning air strikes, which hit buildings used by Arafat's elite Force-17 security forces because the army accuses it of being behind some of the recent violence involving Palestinians.
New clashes erupted quickly on Thursday. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian youths during a clash with about 50 protesters hurling stones and burning petrol bombs at a Gaza army post on Thursday morning.
The army said it knew of no deaths in that clash but acknowledged troops had shot dead a Palestinian security man it accused of opening fire near a Jewish settlement in Gaza.Palestinians said the man was unarmed when taken to hospital.
Israeli helicopter gunships later hovered over Gaza but there was no word of fresh air strikes.
Arafat said before leaving Jordan that he believed Israel planned “an escalation for the next 100 days that has been described as a military plan by (Israeli Chief of Staff) General (Shaul) Mofaz.”
Ahmad Helles, secretary-general of Arafat's Fatah movement in Gaza, warned of Palestinian revenge for the air raids.
“We say to the Israelis that our cities are not open targets to this enemy and if they hit our cities and civilians, then every place in Israel is a legitimate target for our fighters and our revolutionaries,” he told a rally.
“Any aggression on our land will not pass without retaliation."
It was the first such threat from Fatah since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza began in late September after peace talks deadlocked.
In another development, US President George W Bush condemned bomb attacks in Israel while discussing the Middle East situation with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on telephone on Wednesday, the White House said.
“The United States strongly condemns the violence that has taken place," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “There's no excuse, no justification for the violence that recently took place in Israel."
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