Israel Hits Hamas; Militants Weigh Truce

JERUSALEM -- With Palestinian resistance groups reportedly on the verge of calling a cease-fire, Israeli soldiers steered their helicopters over a stretch of road in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and fired a pair of rockets into the traffic. A taxi driver and a 22-year-old woman died in Israel’s latest attack on Hamas, Palestinian sources said.

Palestinians called the airstrike a botched attempt to assassinate Hamas radical Mohammed Siam, who lost his leg but survived -- one of more than a dozen Palestinian casualties in the attack on the militant group.

An Israeli security source said the target was a Hamas cell driving toward farmlands on the edge of the town of Khan Yunis with a stash of mortar shells meant for an attack on a nearby Israeli settlement.

The afternoon strike further muddied preparations for a Palestinian truce. Some Palestinian radicals said a cease-fire agreement had been reached and could be announced within hours; others said there was no such accord.

In the Gaza Strip, a freshly angered Hamas vowed to avenge the Israeli rocket attack.

The explosions occurred just as a flurry of reports were circulating of an immediate call to peace from militants. There was apparently no connection, although Wednesday’s attack was the latest in a string of Israeli attempts at “targeted killings” of Palestinian militants as mediators are struggling to broker a truce.

Despite a desperate push to implement the U.S.-backed peace “road map,” the blood of suicide bombings, army raids and gun battles has continued to stain these lands.

On Wednesday, the 1,000th day of fighting in the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, an Israeli soldier was wounded and two Hamas members were shot dead in a gun battle in the Gaza countryside. Meanwhile, Israeli police captured a pair of suspected Palestinian bombers in an Israeli Arab village, and detonated the heavy explosives.

Palestinians have pinned dwindling hopes for peace on a formal cease-fire pledge expected any day from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Under the cease-fire, Palestinian radicals would halt all attacks on civilians in Israel proper, as well as on soldiers and settlers in the Palestinian territories, for three months. Settlers are often deemed acceptable military targets by even those Palestinians who condemn attacks within Israel’s 1967 borders. Palestinians hope that the cease-fire will give their security forces time to regroup and satisfy international calls for progress.

The possibility of a cease-fire has hovered over the region for weeks, just out of reach of a Palestinian Authority leadership under immense pressure from the United States, Israel and its own people.

Trapped between international calls for moderation -- and internal fury over ongoing bloodshed -- Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has spent weeks trying to coax militants in Gaza to put down their guns. Negotiations have also been held in Cairo and Damascus, the Syrian capital.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah and Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who dispatched orders from an Israeli jail, hammered out an agreement in talks in Damascus, according to Palestinian negotiators and news reports.

The arrangement was on the verge of being formally announced Wednesday, said Fatah representative Kadoura Fares, and is still likely within “hours.”

Even if an agreement is achieved, it was unclear whether the factions could maintain the cease-fire.

In a skeptical Israel, where anything short of a wholesale crackdown is widely regarded as a temporary solution at best, news of an expected truce drew a tepid reaction.

“It’s irrelevant,” said Raanan Gissin, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “It’s all just words and talk.”

Meanwhile, in the United States, President Bush said he’d “believe [a cease-fire] when I see it.

“It’s one thing to make a verbal agreement,” he said. “But in order for there to be peace in the Middle East, we must see organizations such as Hamas dismantled.”

In Gaza, representatives of Islamic Jihad and Hamas insisted that no truce had yet been approved.

Nabil abu Rudaineh, an advisor to Arafat, said the Palestinians were waiting for a guarantee from the United States and Egypt that Israel would put a stop to targeted killings like Wednesday’s strike in Gaza.

Bloodied by years of suicide bombings and sniper attacks by Palestinian radicals, Israel defends its policy. Nearly 30 Israelis have been slain since Sharon, Abbas and Bush gathered for peace talks in Jordan three weeks ago, and Israel has every right to defend itself, Gissin said.

Human rights groups both within Israel and overseas have decried the strikes, pointing out the high rate of civilian casualties and the murky legalities of carrying out an execution without trial.

In its boldest recent attack, Israeli troops tried to kill senior Hamas leader Abdulaziz Rantisi this month by firing on his car in Gaza. Rantisi escaped but two others died, and the attack drew dismay from U.S. officials. But the United States later reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself by doing away with “ticking bombs” -- would-be attackers who pose an immediate threat to Israeli safety.

No U.S. Criticism

The United States did not publicly criticize Israel for Wednesday’s attack, citing insufficient independent intelligence to determine whether the target was a “ticking bomb.” But some U.S. officials said they were disturbed by the timing.

Officials said Wednesday’s strike underscored the difficulty that the administration faces in evaluating Israel’s claims of imminent threat.

“Israel knows this is a very sensitive issue for us and, frankly, they could decide to call all of them ticking bombs,” said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “How do we sort them out? It’s often too difficult to tell and too difficult not to take the Israelis’ word for it.”

Another U.S. official suggested that Israel may be “finishing up” items on its agenda before a cease-fire takes hold.

And a third U.S. official said Israel also may be trying to add to the pressure on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militias, hoping to scare them into a cease-fire.

Ramifications Unclear

It was not yet clear what effect Wednesday’s assaults might have on a Palestinian truce. But analysts say that until Palestinian negotiators can prod an ideologically diverse stable of resistance groups into a cease-fire, they have scant leeway to broker a deal with the Jewish state.

Israel has offered to pull its soldiers out of the Gaza Strip and Bethlehem, leaving the tattered Palestinian security forces to patrol the land. It would be a move toward autonomy, but Palestinian negotiators are balking at what they regard as a potential trap: They are afraid that if they try to quell the militants by force, the struggles could degenerate into a messy and demoralizing civil war.

Israelis see Wednesday’s attack as smart self-defense, but some Palestinians regarded the strike as part of a calculated effort to derail a cease-fire.

The Palestinians say Israel has practical reasons to fear a lull in military operations; the pause could give militants time to strengthen themselves. Moreover, many Palestinians believe that Israel is moving slowly to avoid dismantling settlements and taking other painful steps.

“It’s the most sensitive, the most crucial and the most dangerous step,” said Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian political analyst. “And when the Israelis feel the Palestinians are about to reach a cease-fire, they provoke the Palestinians.”

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington and special correspondents Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City and Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.