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Zylka
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quote:
By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - As a wave of new violence swept over Jerusalem and Gaza, leaving 26 people dead, President Bush (news - web sites) urged nations to cut off funding for terrorists trying to stymie efforts to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israeli helicopters struck a car in Gaza City with missiles early Thursday, killing two men hours after an earlier airstrike killed seven. Four of the dead were from the Islamic militant group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide strike in downtown Jerusalem.
In that attack, a Palestinian teenager disguised as an Orthodox Jew got on a Jerusalem city bus and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 16 people and wounding 70 others. It was the bloodiest suicide attack since Jan. 5, when two bombers killed 23 in downtown Tel Aviv.
The familiar pattern of attack and retaliation wrested attention from the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, designed to end 32 months of violence and solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict with a formula of two states living side by side in peace.
President Bush, who just a week ago launched the plan and now was watching its chances of success diminish by the hour, angrily condemned the bus bombing.
He urged all nations "to fight off terror, to cut off money to organizations such as Hamas, to isolate those who hate so much that they're willing to kill to stop peace from going forward." The State Department has designated Hamas a terror group.
A day earlier, Bush had scolded Israel for a missile strike in Gaza that wounded Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a political leader of Hamas.
One of the wounded in Wednesday's bus bombing was the daughter of New Jersey State Sen. Robert Singer, Israel Radio reported. Her condition was not known.
"I saw hands lying on the ground, and all those kids they pulled out," said Ghie Arbeli, 24, who was waiting for a bus on the other side of the street.
Natan Sharansky, Israel's minister for Jerusalem affairs, stood next to the bus ruins shaking his head.
"My daughter rides that bus, so immediately you start checking where your family is and getting irritated because one doesn't know where the other is and none of the phones work," he said.
Palestinians identified the attacker as Abdel Madi Shabneh, 18, a high school student from Hebron.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites), shunted aside in recent weeks in a U.S. peace effort, moved back to center stage, summoning reporters and reading a tough statement calling on all Palestinian factions to cease fire, condemning the attacks in both Jerusalem and Gaza and pleading for international intervention to rescue the road map plan.
Arafat said the factions must "put the Palestinian national interest as a first priority and not to give Israel a chance to drag us into destroying the peace process."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) declared that though he is committed to a diplomatic process leading to peace, his army would pursue violent Palestinian groups "to the bitter end."
Left behind was Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, promoted by Israel and the U.S. as a replacement for Arafat. His position has been badly weakened by the spiraling violence, burying his efforts to persuade Palestinian militants to halt attacks against Israelis instead of ordering a crackdown.
Abbas issued a statement appealing for "a full commitment from all parties to a cease-fire, to stop violence and to immediately move into a serious implementation of road map." Rantisi rejected the truce call.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz called high-level consultations late Wednesday, and Israel Radio reported afterward that the focus of Israel's battle would be the infrastructure of Hamas.
Within minutes, Israeli helicopters struck Gaza City for the second time in six hours. Just after midnight, the Israeli gunships fired missiles at a car, killing two men inside.
They were identified as low-level Hamas activists, ages 22 and 24, from a unit that guards city streets. The Israeli military said the target was a cell of Palestinians that was about to fire a mortar shell at the nearby Netzarim settlement.
Earlier, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car in Gaza City, killing two Hamas commanders, Tito Massoud, 35, and Soheil Abu Nahel, 29. The missiles turned the car into a burning ball of wreckage.
Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said a total of seven people were killed and 30 wounded. Among the wounded were eight children under the age of 14. |
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12-06-2003 11:55
. What's the difference between wiccan and satanism?
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