Israelis raid Gaza after bus bombing

Israeli tanks have stormed into a Gaza Strip refugee camp and at least two Palestinians have been killed as fighting erupted after a Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel killed 15 people.

GAZA (PRWEB) March 8, 2003 - Israeli tanks have stormed into a Gaza Strip refugee camp and at least two Palestinians have been killed as fighting
erupted after a Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel killed 15 people.

The bus bombing in the port city of Haifa and Israeli counter-moves were a blow to U.S. hopes of containing violence in the Middle East as
Washington prepares for a possible war against Iraq.

Palestinian medics in the vast Jabalya refugee quarter said a 60-year-old man was killed by one of seven missiles fired by Israeli
helicopters backing an incursion by dozens of tanks.

Another unidentified Palestinian man was shot dead by troops and three people were hospitalised after a missile crashed into their house
in the camp of 90,000 people, they said.

Israeli military sources reported heavy exchanges of fire inside the camp.

Witnesses said armed men were laying mines against roving Israeli armour and others battled Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets near the
U.N. relief compound in Jabalya, a hotbed of militants leading a 29-month-old uprising against Israel.

Israel's security cabinet, in a meeting after Wednesday's suicide bombing, decided to step up military action against Palestinian "terrorist"
cells and impose a total blockade on the nearby West Bank until Sunday, Israeli security sources said.

The new rightist Israeli government, which took office a week ago after elections, has ministers backing a harder line against the revolt
than the previous broad coalition, including a possible expulsion of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Some 3.5 million Palestinians live under Israeli closures and curfews imposed in response to violence fear a tougher crackdown as the
world fixates on possible war in Iraq.

Israeli security sources said the identity card of a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Hebron was found in the bus wreckage and
troops went to the man's family home there on Wednesday evening and detained his father and two brothers.

Palestinian witnesses identified the bomber as Imran Salim al Qawasmeh, a 21-year-old activist for the Islamic militant group Hamas and
said he had been missing for several days.

But Israel's initial military response appeared to focus on Gaza, a powerhouse of Islamic militants, where witnesses said dozens of tanks
entered from Israel and swept into Jabalya.

'BIGGEST' RAID ON CAMP SINCE UPRISING BEGAN

They called it the biggest Israeli military incursion into Jabalya since the uprising for statehood began in September 2000. Medics said
they feared casualties would mount as ambulances were unable to move around.

At least 1,893 Palestinians and 706 Israelis -- not including Haifa's casualties who were not immediately identified -- have been killed
since the uprising began after negotiations on Palestinian statehood stalled.

Israeli military sources confirmed an army operation inside Jabalya but gave no details.

Eighteen Palestinians were killed in an army raid into Jabalya last April at a time of escalating Palestinian suicide attacks waged in
pursuit of independence in the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Wednesday's bus bombing in the northern Israeli port city was the first suicide attack for two months. Intensified Israeli military incursions,
blockades and dragnets for suspected militants had markedly curbed such attacks.

The United States, which rebuked Israel this week over a weekend raid in Gaza that killed civilians as well as militants, led international
condemnation of the Haifa blast.

But President George W. Bush vowed to keep pursuing peace initiatives and Britain, France, Germany and Russia called for a fresh
diplomatic process -- in deep freeze since mid-2000.

The Haifa explosion peeled the roof off bus number 37, turned the vehicle into a charred wreck and hurled bodies out onto a main street in
Israel's third largest city.

Students at a local university were emerging from classes at the time of the blast.

Police said the assailant had a large bomb strapped to his body. The blast from the nail-packed bomb, the trademark of suicide militants,
sprayed nearby cars with blood and showered bus seats and victims' shoes onto the street.

Reuters