Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Strip Kills 12

A midnight Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip killed one of the most senior figures in the militant Hamas movement and at least 11 other Palestinians, including eight children, early today, authorities and witnesses said.

The lightning raid destroyed at least four homes in a Gaza City residential neighborhood, injuring scores of people and sending hundreds of others scrambling outdoors.

The target of the strike was the home of Salah Shehada, founder of Hamas’ military wing and long suspected by the Israeli army of involvement in terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings, against Israeli citizens.

Shehada’s fate was the subject of major confusion after the strike, with conflicting reports saying that he had died or that he had survived, with or without injuries. But at midmorning today, a Hamas leader confirmed that Shehada was among the dead.

Shehada’s two-story home, near the center of Gaza City, was reduced to rubble by a rocket fired from an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, witnesses said. Neighboring homes were severely damaged, trapping an unknown number of residents, whom rescue crews worked frantically to free.

Before Shehada’s death was confirmed, hospital officials reported that 11 people had died, including a 2-month-old, and that more than 100 were hurt. A Palestinian Authority official declared the raid “a massacre.”

The Israeli army had no immediate comment except to confirm that it had struck at Shehada, whom it accused of masterminding “hundreds of terror attacks” against Israelis. Among those incidents was an attack on a group of Jewish religious students in March and the slaying of four Israeli soldiers in January, an army spokeswoman said.

The raid came just hours after Hamas’ spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, told reporters that his group would be willing to call off suicide attacks if Israeli forces withdrew from the West Bank, which they have occupied for more than a month. Israeli and Palestinian officials met over the weekend to discuss a possible phased pullout, among other issues, and rumors flew Monday that soldiers might begin moving out of some West Bank cities within days.

Those negotiations are now in doubt, as is restraint by Hamas. A Hamas official, speaking to reporters at the Gaza hospital where the dead and wounded were taken, warned that “all the Palestinian people will unify to avenge the blood of the martyrs.”

“Anyone who dreams of so-called peace is mistaken,” Hamas said in its statement confirming Shehada’s death.

The group added that Shehada’s wife and three of their daughters were also killed. It was unclear, however, whether they were among the 11 fatalities confirmed by hospital officials or were in addition to that tally.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement condemning the attack. “Israel has the legal and moral responsibility to take all measures to avoid the loss of innocent life; it clearly failed to do so in using a missile against an apartment building,” Annan said. He called on Israel “to halt such actions and to conduct itself in a manner that is fully consistent with international humanitarian law.”

At the scene of the attack, Palestinian crowds shouted, “God is great!” and “Death to Israel!” whenever someone was recovered alive from beneath the piles of rubble. Television footage showed bloodied victims being carried out on stretchers.

Hundreds of people, many in their pajamas, thronged the scene, including known Hamas activists who came to see what had happened to their colleague.An initial report of Shehada’s death was soon contradicted by others that variously put him in the hospital with injuries, walking among and consoling the wounded, or somewhere in hiding, unscathed.

By midmorning, however, hopes that he might be alive began to fade among Hamas activists who remained at the debris-strewn attack site, looking for a sign of Shehada or his body. Then his death was announced. Shehada had long been one of the Israeli authorities’ prime targets. He spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison because of his involvement in the first Palestinian intifada but was released shortly before the latest confrontation began in September 2000. Israel suspects that he was one of the driving forces in the resumption of violence against Israelis.

Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the last two years, including some of the suicide bombings that have frightened Israelis into avoiding public places and staying home.

After two deadly back-to-back suicide attacks in June, Israeli forces responded by sending tanks into the West Bank and reoccupying most of the cities there. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank have been under virtual house arrest, allowed out only periodically to buy supplies.

In recent days, the strict military-enforced curfews have been easing, despite two attacks on civilians in Israel last week that left a dozen victims dead.

Officials from the two sides met Saturday to discuss plans for the Israeli government to release millions of dollars in Palestinian Authority funds, frozen after the current intifada began.

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says the money will be released only if the Palestinian Authority implements reforms and ensures that the funds do not go to support terrorism. An agreement on the issue had been expected soon and was to include the participation of a U.S. supervisor to monitor the money flow.

There also was a glimmer of hope that the Israeli army would start to pull back from the seven West Bank cities it has kept under a lockdown since June.

Although they gave no timetable and more hawkish officials demanded that the army stay longer, Israeli government sources hinted Monday that tanks could begin withdrawing soon from two of the “quieter” West Bank cities, Hebron and Bethlehem, in the absence of terrorist attacks.

The situation is likely to harden again after today’s airstrike.

“I condemn this despicable, cowardly act.... Bullets will breed bullets, violence will breed violence,” Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Cabinet minister, told the BBC. Erekat participated in the discussions with Israeli officials Saturday.

Erekat accused Sharon of trying to derail the effort to defuse tensions but said that he himself had not given up hope.

After the airstrike, Palestinian protesters took to the streets throughout the Gaza Strip. Some opened fire on Jewish settlements in the area, but there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

In recent days, Israeli forces have struck twice at Gaza, bombing what the army said were metal workshops where mortar shells and rockets were being manufactured. Palestinian mortar fire at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip occurs with some frequency.

The strip is walled off from Israel by a fortified fence, which has made it difficult for attackers to get into Israel from Gaza.

Still, the Israeli government has long complained that terrorist cells operate freely there.

Times staff writer William Orme in New York contributed to this report.