Nazir Majally • Asharq Al-Awsat

TEL AVIV, 14 June 2003 — Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least two missiles yesterday at a car in Gaza City, killing one Palestinian and wounding 22, medical sources said.

The target of the air strike on Gaza’s Sabra neighborhood was not immediately clear. Television images showed large crowds gathered around the blackened carcass of a car still smoking after the missile attack.

Israel’s Channel 1 television said the target could be members of Hamas, which earlier fired two rockets into Israel, causing no casualties.

Earlier, Palestinian leaders expressed concern that the United States was giving a free hand to the Israeli military. The Palestinians complained of statements by senior US officials Thursday singling out Hamas as the main culprit in the bloodshed that has left more than 60 people dead since a peace summit on June 4.

“We are asking the United States to put pressure on the Israeli government” to halt its attacks, said Nabil Abu Rudeinah, top adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“It is not acceptable to put pressure only on the Palestinian side because the Israelis are continuing their escalation and aggression,” he said.

Abu Rudeinah said the spate of Israeli helicopter attacks that has killed two dozen Palestinians this week threatened efforts to implement the road map for peace pushed by US President George W. Bush at the summit in Aqaba, Jordan.

“We need international intervention immediately to stop the Israeli escalation and aggression,” he said. He added that the “next 48 hours will be very critical” to prospects for salvaging the peace process, but did not elaborate.

Yesterday, the United States tried to project a more balanced stance. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was anxious to see restraint from Israel in retaliating against Palestinian attacks but stressed that “terror” against Israelis must stop.

Hamas leaders, who had not been targeted by Israel in the past 32 months of intifada, are now marked for death, an Israeli security official said.

They are considered “ticking bombs” — and therefore legitimate targets — because they set policy and order attacks on Israelis, the official said. Avi Pazner, a government spokesman, said “there is no immunity for anybody who either orders or executes terrorist activities.”

And military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily that “from now on, everyone is in the crosshairs all the time,” including Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

But an opinion poll published in the same paper showed a majority of Israelis oppose the stepped-up attacks on Hamas leaders.

Israel, meanwhile, rejected a proposal by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to deploy armed peacekeepers as a buffer force to stop the violence between the sides.

“It’s not a good idea,” said Israeli Deputy Ambassador Arye Mekel after a monthly session of the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. “There is no need for any intervention or a foreign force or whatever it is,” Mekel said, adding that Israel could take measures to defend itself. — Additional input from agencies