Israel pounds Palestinian targets in Gaza

By Ibrahim Barzak

Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli planes, helicopters and warships pounded Gaza on Wednesday in one of the fiercest assaults of the Palestinian uprising. Thirteen Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in violence in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel kept up the assault early this morning as gunboats targeted a Palestinian police roadblock near the Gaza City coast, wounding 13 policemen, three critically, Palestinian security officials and doctors said. Other gunboats fired at Arafat’s seaside Gaza office, witnesses said.

Seven of the Palestinians died in fighting in Gaza on Wednesday. Five others died in separate incidents, including a Hamas activist killed in an explosion at his Gaza City home.

Late Wednesday, an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where the Palestinian leader has been trapped for three months by Israeli forces. The missile exploded 50 feet from Arafat’s office as he was meeting with a European Union envoy. No one was hurt, officials said.

The Israeli military said the strike on Arafat’s compound was "part of Israel’s fight against terror."

Amid the worst spate of violence since the start of the conflict 17 months ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised Israel would strike "without letup" until Palestinian militants’ attacks on Israelis are reined in.

"This is a really tough war we are in," the Israeli leader told troops and Israeli officials at a military checkpoint south of Jerusalem.

Sharon’s foreign minister, Shimon Peres, however, said force was not the answer. "A cease-fire cannot be achieved just by using fire," he told journalists in Jerusalem.

A spokesman for another Cabinet minister, Avigdor Lieberman, confirmed a sardonic closed-door exchange during which Peres told Lieberman that excessively harsh measures against the Palestinians could lead to war-crimes accusations.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also criticized the heavy retaliation, and said both sides’ policies were fueling violence that made peace efforts impossible. "Mr. Sharon has to take a hard look at his policies and see if they can work," Powell said in Washington. "I don’t think declaring war on Palestinians will work."