Israeli Missile Attack Kills Militant Leader

In the second such strike this week, Israeli helicopters Thursday fired a missile at a car carrying a top Palestinian militant leader in the Gaza Strip, killing him and injuring 12 bystanders.

The attack, in a run-down neighborhood in Gaza City that is known as a stronghold of several violent Islamic groups, took place only yards from the spot where, two days earlier, Israeli helicopter-fired missiles obliterated a vehicle carrying two Hamas leaders, a strike that left five other people dead as well.

The target of Thursday’s attack was identified as Mahmoud Zatme, a senior commander of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. He was blamed by Israel for a string of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the death, which it called a heavy blow.

“We will fight with the last drop of blood in our bodies,” said Mohammed Al Hindi, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Earlier Thursday, Israeli undercover troops in the West Bank town of Tulkarm fired on a car carrying several members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction.

The driver was killed and four others were injured, and Israel said three wanted Palestinian fugitives escaped.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for an attack before dawn Thursday on an Israeli army base that left two Israeli soldiers and the Palestinian gunman dead.

This week’s missile strikes in Gaza, coupled with the raid in Tulkarm, marked an upsurge in what Israel calls “targeted killings” of Palestinian militant leaders, a practice condemned by Palestinians and international human rights groups.

Israel says it has the right to kill militants it knows to be responsible for Israeli deaths and who are plotting more attacks; Palestinians consider such killings to be assassinations.

Without referring directly to the latest Israeli actions, the European Union urged Israel to show “ultimate restraint” at what it described as a delicate time, while the Palestinian prime minister designate, Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to assemble a Cabinet and international mediators are preparing to unveil a peace plan known as the “road map.”

“In such a critical moment for the region ... we consider that extra-judicial executions, which also caused severe casualties among innocent civilians, are rather unwise and counterproductive,” the European Union said in a statement.

Israel has insisted that the administration of Abbas, who is widely known as Abu Mazen, crack down on militant groups as a condition of moving ahead with peace negotiations.

However, the Palestinians accuse Israel of trying to sabotage the “road map,” written by the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

The proposal calls for the creation of a provisional Palestinian state.

Palestinian sources say Abu Mazen has balked at pressure from Arafat to retain longtime cronies of the Palestinian leader in his Cabinet, and that has delayed the announcing and swearing-in of the new leadership. Abu Mazen has been given another two weeks to present his Cabinet.