Agence France Presse  --  Arab News

GAZA CITY, 4 March 2004 — Three members of the hard-line Palestinian movement Hamas were killed yesterday in an Israeli helicopter strike on a car near a Jewish settlement just south of Gaza City, sources on both sides said.

The car was targeted with two rockets fired from a helicopter close to the Netzarim settlement, witnesses said, the day after the Israeli army vowed to step up such operations.

The charred bodies of the three victims were transferred to Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, where they were pronounced dead.

Two passers-by were also injured, medical sources said.

The three dead — named as Ammar Hassan, Ibrahim al-Deiri and Tarad al-Jamal — were all members of Hamas, according to Hamas and Palestinian security sources. Their ages were not immediately known.

An Israeli military spokesman told AFP that the car had been targeted as it was carrying leading Hamas members suspected of planning future attacks.

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the group had been preparing an imminent attack, without giving details of the target.

“We stopped a murder in the making. We saved many human lives,” he told AFP.

A masked Hamas follower at the Shifa hospital vowed that the group would “deliver a swift response to this crime.”

“The Zionist entity must be prepared to suffer painful blows,” he added.

The latest deaths bring the overall toll since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000 to 3,797, including 2,843 Palestinians and 886 Israelis, according to an AFP count.

The Israeli military’s chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, announced on Tuesday that the army would intensify its operations against militant groups in the Palestinian territories.

“In this kind of situation, attack is the best form of defense ... We will pursue them — whoever they are and wherever they are.”

The general’s announcement came after the military resumed “targeted killing” operations that had been suspended for several weeks, killing three suspected militants in a helicopter strike in Gaza City on Saturday.

Neztarim — whose 65 families are guarded by an entire army battalion — is set to be dismantled as part of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s controversial plan to disengage from the Palestinians.

Three Israeli soldiers, including two women, were killed in their barracks last October while protecting the settlement.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the latest attack was proof of Israel’s aggressive intent despite its talk of withdrawing from Gaza.

“This crime shows that Israel is determined to go on with the incursions, assassinations and settlement activity while at the same time sending out test balloons,” he told AFP.

Pazner added there would be no let-up in the campaign against militants despite the prospect of a withdrawal from Gaza.