Palestinian Mortar Attacks Draw Return Fire From Israel

Palestinians blasted Israeli targets with mortars Thursday and Syria warned that it had the right to retaliate for an Israeli air raid in Lebanon, as the U.S. and Europe struggled to ease tensions in the Mideast.

After nightfall, two mortar shells landed in fields near Nir Oz, a collective farming village in Israel near the Gaza Strip and, earlier, two mortar shells exploded harmlessly in the afternoon near the Jewish settlement of Atzmona in Gaza, the military said.

Israeli forces responded by firing on several members of the Islamic militant group Hamas who were launching mortars. A senior Hamas activist, Khalil Sakani, was seriously wounded. Hamas claimed responsibility for mortar attacks on the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in Gaza overnight, and later released a film of activists firing mortars.

Earlier, an explosion rocked a building in the West Bank city of Ramallah where Force 17, an elite Palestinian security unit, has an office. At first, the Palestinians said the damage was caused by an Israeli rocket, but they said later that a gas leak caused the blast.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he held Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat responsible for the mortar attacks.

But Palestinian police commander Abdel Razek Majaydeh said that there is a standing order from Arafat against firing mortars from populated Palestinian areas, to prevent injury to civilians from Israeli retaliation.

Despite the recriminations, Israeli soldiers Thursday took down some Gaza Strip barricades that had been erected to prevent Palestinian travel.

Meanwhile, President Bush spoke with Syrian President Bashar Assad and urged restraint in the wake of an Israeli strike against a Syrian radar base in Lebanon this week, the White House said. The raid killed three Syrian soldiers, whose nation is the main power broker in Lebanon.

But Assad told Bush that Syrians, “through our commitment to defend peace and our rights and dignity, reserve our right to retaliate,” Assad’s spokesman said.

Also Thursday, European Union Mideast envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos said he had met Israeli and Palestinian officials to try to ease the violence that erupted 6 1/2 months ago.