Israel has come under a barrage of criticism after one of its warplanes dropped a one-ton laser-guided bomb into the crowded neighbourhood of Al Daraj, killing 15 Palestinians, a top militant and wounding 176 in Gaza City.
As some 50 000 angry Palestinians attended a mass funeral here, Israel was struggling to justify a strike which also killed nine children and threatened to spark a new wave of retaliatory suicide bombings.
Salah Shehade, the founder and head of the armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas, was killed with his bodyguard, wife and daughter in the bomb attack on a teeming neighbourhood in central Gaza City late on Monday, Hamas officials said.
Palestinian health minister Riad al-Zaanoun told a press conference in Gaza City that five of the dead were female and that the injured included 36 children and 23 women.
Hospital sources said 11 of Shehade’s neighbours died in the devastating raid just before midnight, including nine children ranging from 13 years to two months old.
The raid, which Israel acknowledged was part of its controversial campaign to liquidate wanted militants, sparked outrage among Palestinians. Hamas has vowed bloody reprisals.
“This massacre will not pass without a final punishment,” warned the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the group’s armed wing. As Israel braced for revenge attacks, three homemade Qassem rockets — the brigades’ trademark weapon — exploded near the village of Sderot on Tuesday evening without causing any casualties, public radio said.
They had been fired from the northern Gaza Strip, where a Jewish settlement also came under mortar fire, lightly wounding two settlers.
In other violence, two Palestinian militants were reported killed in clashes with the Israeli army in the southern Gaza Strip after the air raid. Israeli troops also shot dead three suspected militants in the West Bank.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of continuing a “policy of massacres” and criticised the world community for failing to speak out.
“I ask the whole world how it can remain silent before such crimes and not seek to put an end to them?” Arafat was quoted as saying by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The killing also dashed hopes of a resumption of dialogue following a recent series of tentative moves aimed at rebuilding confidence between the two sides. It prompted a reprimand from Israel’s staunchest ally.
The Bush administration on Wednesday condemned as “heavy handed” the Israeli attack, saying that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was aware that the apartment building struck was filled with ordinary Palestinians, including children, reports the New York Times.
“We had to show the Sharon government there are some redlines” on their action, the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying today. “There was a lot of anger around here.”
The newspaper also noted that despite the Bush?s tough words, he made no suggestion that the United States would withhold American arms if they are used again in the deliberate targeting of civilian housing.
The paper said Bush was described by one aide as “visibly angry” at reports of the damage.
Several European and Arab leaders condemned the attack, with UN human rights chief Mary Robinson saying that under international law “the reckless killing of civilians is absolutely prohibited.”
But Sharon, who reportedly personally approved the strike, congratulated his forces on “one of the most successful operations” while also expressing “regret for the innocent victims of this air raid.”
Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer insisted Israel had made every effort to avoid civilian casualties, calling off a planned strike against the same target on Saturday night when it became clear the militant leader’s family was also in the building.
But Palestinian leaders expressed outrage at the attack ? one of the deadliest in the 22-month-old resurgence of violence in the Middle East — dubbing it a “war crime” perpetrated by Israel with the complicity of the United States.
About 50 000 people, including hundreds of gunmen firing in the air, turned out in Gaza City for the funeral of the 15 victims after an umbrella of Palestinian nationalist and Islamic factions called for a “day of rage.”
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat denounced the raid as a “despicable and cowardly act” coming at a time when the two sides were beginning to rekindle a dialogue on humanitarian and security issues.
Hamas officials said Shehade (50) his bodyguard Zaher Nassar and his wife Leila and daughter Eman were blown to pieces. Nothing was left of their bodies and confusion surrounded the militant’s fate for much of the night.
Rescuers had difficulty getting through the rubble to search for survivors as the neighbourhood was plunged into darkness. Frantic crowds carried bloodied victims to ambulances.
But Israeli army commanders defended the operation, even with its civilian casualties.
Shehade, who was one of Israel’s most wanted men, “was planning a major attack in the region which had to be stopped,” army representative Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Rafowicz told AFP.
“The operation was a pinpoint one which nonetheless caused collateral damage,” he said.
“In the war against terrorism, Islamist murders cannot be given impunity just because they hide in urban areas under cover of the presence of civilians.”
Only Interior Minister Eli Yishai admitted that the method used, which also brought stiff criticism from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, could have been a “mistake.”
Israel has carried out scores of “targeted killings” of Palestinian militants. On June 30, the army killed Mahannad Taher, leader of Ezzedin al-Qassam for the northern West Bank, in Nablus.
The strategy has come under fire from the international community and UN chief Annan deplored the latest 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,” said his representative Fred Eckhard.
Nabil Abu Rudeina, Arafat’s top adviser, said the authority would appeal to the UN Security Council within 24 hours. Pro-Western Arab governments said the deadly strike against the Hamas military leader had shattered efforts by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority to secure a halt to the group’s suicide bombings against Israel.
Just hours before the Israeli raid, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin had said the movement was prepared to halt its attacks against Israeli civilian targets if Israel ended its crackdown on the Palestinians.
“We are ready to halt martyrdom operations if Israeli occupation forces withdraw from West Bank towns they have reoccupied, stop demolishing homes and assassinating (Palestinian militants), and free detainees,” he told the Arabic satellite television station Al-Jazeera.
Just hours later, he was back on the same channel vowing revenge for the Israeli attack.
Palestinian moderates, who last month signed a petition calling for an end to the suicide attacks, were in no doubt that that had been precisely Sharon’s intention.
In a signed statement, the leading doves, including Palestine Liberation Organisation Jerusalem affairs commissioner Sari Nusseibeh, called on fellow moderates in Israel to publicly oppose their hawkish premier.
“In the wake of last night’s criminal bombing … we hereby appeal to supporters of peace in Israel to … speak out against Sharon’s clear determination to kill not only Palestinian civilians but the very chance of peace,” they said.