Israeli Raid, Copter Attack Kill at Least 6 Palestinians

In a commando operation and a helicopter attack, Israeli forces killed at least six Palestinians on Wednesday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, pressing a campaign of hunting down and slaying suspected bombers and gunmen. A seventh Palestinian, a police officer, was killed in unclear circumstances.

It was an especially deadly day, and the bloodshed came despite fledgling efforts to renew truce talks, possibly as early as next week, between Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Two Jewish settlers were wounded when Palestinians fired on their garbage truck in the northern West Bank.

In Gaza City, Israeli combat helicopters fired missiles at two cars in the late afternoon, apparently targeting a senior leader of the radical Islamic movement Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for numerous suicide bombings of Israeli Jews.

The occupants of the two cars fled during the initial barrage, witnesses said, leaving behind guns. But an 18-year-old was caught by another missile and killed as he attempted to flee.

The teen was identified as Bilal Ghoul, who worked for one of Arafat’s security services and was the son of a prominent Hamas bomb maker. His father, Mohammed Ghoul, was thought to have been riding in the second car and escaped.

According to some reports, the second car also carried Mohammed Deif, top leader of Hamas’ military wing and the No. 1 suspect on Israel’s list of most-wanted terrorists. Deif, accused by Israel of masterminding a series of horrific bus bombings in 1996 and other attacks, was jailed by Arafat’s police in May 2000 but released by the Palestinian leader in October at the start of the current Palestinian uprising.

Residents near the site of Wednesday’s attack told Palestinian journalists that they saw Deif as he fled. However, Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahar and a senior Israeli security source denied that Deif was in one of the cars. It also seemed unlikely that a man who has so successfully avoided being captured or killed by Israel would be riding through Gaza City in daylight.

However, the mere prospect created a flurry of excitement. Israeli television reported that Deif was the target, while the Israeli army said only that it had attacked “terrorist cells” conducting mortar attacks on Jewish settlements.

Near the charred cars, crowds of Palestinians chanted, “Death to Israel!” and “Death to Sharon!”--the latter a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Sharon, speaking this week to a gathering of his generals, said he believed that the one-two punch of killing top guerrillas and carrying out limited incursions into Palestinian territory was the way to defeat the nearly 11-month-old Palestinian revolt.

Amos Harel, military affairs correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, covered Sharon’s meeting with the army and reported that there was agreement that targeted killings should focus on high-level, hands-on guerrillas instead of political leaders.

“The most important aspect of the assassination policy,” Harel wrote this week, “is the elimination of the ‘engineers’--the bomb manufacturing experts. . . . An engineer who manages to survive for more than a few months could cost Israel tens of dead in terrorist attacks.”

Palestinians claim that Israel has killed about 60 activists and a few innocent bystanders with its policy of targeted killings, which has been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights organizations.

Wednesday’s single bloodiest episode took place well before dawn. A special army commando unit shot to death five Palestinians near the West Bank city of Nablus. The army said two were spied planting a bomb alongside a road and quickly killed, and three were shot when they arrived at the scene.

Palestinians gave a different version of events, saying that only one man was a gunman. The others, they said, were killed while attempting to rescue the first man, who had been wounded by Israeli fire and later died.

Meanwhile, in the Gazan town of Rafah on the border with Egypt, Palestinian police officer Mahmoud Jasser was summoned Wednesday to investigate a suspicious item in a home and was killed. There were conflicting reports about whether he was killed in an explosion or by Israeli sniper fire.