Gaza City | Friday
THE death toll from spiralling Palestinian-Israeli violence continued to soar on Friday, as US President George W. Bush said he would send his envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region.
But despite Bush’s appeals for an end to the devastating cycle of bloodshed, Israeli forces kept up their pressure on the Gaza Strip and West Bank during a 24-hour period that saw 33 Palestinians and four Jewish settlers killed.
From late on Thursday to early Friday, some 19 Palestinians and four Israeli settlers were killed in the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank Thursday, 14 more Palestinians were killed, including a UN employee in Tulkarem — the first staffer of the world body to be killed since the intifada erupted in September 2000.
Described by his representative as being ”saddened and distressed by the death of Kamal Hamadan,” UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed to the Israeli government to investigate the killing of the UN employee and to discipline those responsible.
But the Jewish state could only see more fuel for it military operations: four Israelis were killed and 22 wounded late on Thursday after a Palestinian gunman infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and opened fire before being killed himself, the Israeli army and ambulance services said.
The armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
In what appeared to be a quick response, Israeli armoured cars, tanks and bulldozers entered two villages — Khuzaa and Abassan near Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip — in operations that left 13 Palestinians dead and some 10 arrested before the Israeli forces pulled out shortly after dawn.
Staff at Khan Yunis hospital said they had received at least 30 wounded from the two incursions, and the local mosque broadcast an appeal for blood donors, residents said.
Among the dead from one incursion was the Palestinian public security chief for the southern Gaza Strip, 62-year-old General Ahmad Mufrij –the most senior Palestinian security official to be killed since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada in September 2000.
North of Gaza City, four Palestinians, including two policeman and an ambulance worker, were killed when Israeli gunboats and helicopters fired missiles at a police post.
Medical workers said their colleague was killed by an Israeli missile while trying to reach the injured.
Meanwhile in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, one Palestinian was killed and 15 were injured in clashes with the Israeli army in Aida refugee camp.
The deaths raised the overall toll from the 17-month-old Palestinian intifada to 1 421 dead, including 1 082 Palestinians and 316 Israelis.
Under fire for not doing enough to forge Middle East peace, Bush said he was ”deeply troubled” by the violence and ordered US envoy Zinni back to the region next week and said Vice President Dick Cheney would also seek to quell violence there during an upcoming visit.
Bush’s stark policy reversal came only hours after US officials insisted Zinni would only return after the parties had lowered the level of violence — and after Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon brushed aside US criticism of his fierce retaliation for attacks by Palestinian militants.
”The combination of General Zinni’s trip and the vice president’s trip may have a positive impact,” said Bush.
But Bush warned: ”There are no assurances” that such missions will break the cycle of escalating clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, ”but that is not going to prevent our government from trying.”
In a statement, Sharon said he ”welcomed” Bush’s announcement that Zinni would return to the region.
The Israeli army has unleashed a deadly wave of attacks on the Gaza Strip after a home-made Palestinian rocket hit a populated area of Israel for the first time on Tuesday.
Earlier on Thursday, a Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and wounded nine people in an attack on a commercial complex just outside Ariel, in the West Bank, one of the biggest Jewish settlements in the occupied PalestE -inian territories.
Also on Thursday, ten Palestinian civilians were wounded when an Israeli F-16 warplane attacked an empty Palestinian police headquarters in the centre of Gaza City — narrowly missing more than 3 000 refugee children in UN-run schools in Gaza City, a UN representative said.
And six Palestinians, among them a heavily pregnant woman, were wounded when Israeli helicopters raided a refugee camp and a village in the northern Gaza Strip. – Sapa-AFP