Israel fires another airstrike on Palestinian offices
Conflict heightens with launch of of longer-range rockets
By GREG MYRE
Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Israel unleashed another airstrike on Palestinian offices in Gaza City on Monday, while the defense minister declared that Palestinian militants had raised the stakes in the Mideast conflict by firing new, longer-range rockets.

The Islamic movement Hamas sent a pair of Qassam-2 rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, digging large craters in two farm fields. Israel viewed it as a serious military escalation, because rockets launched from the West Bank and Gaza could reach some Israeli cities.

In response, Israeli warplanes fired six missiles Monday into the walled Saraya security compound in downtown Gaza City, setting buildings ablaze and sending black smoke into the sky.

More than 30 people were injured, most of them lightly, including George Kochaniec, a photographer for Denver’s Rocky Mountain News. He was treated for a hand injury.
The attack came at a time of changeover between morning and afternoon shifts at nearby schools. The streets were crowded with youngsters, who raced away from the explosions, some screaming in panic.

Hundreds of Palestinians ran to the compound, demanding that suspected Islamic militants jailed there be released. Some threw stones at officers, who fired in the air to keep back the crowd. Palestinian police said all detainees were moved to another prison shortly after the Israeli attack.

In the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, about 300 people stormed a prison and released 17 prisoners as security guards stood aside. One of the prisoners was Islamic Jihad activist Ayub Sidr. Palestinians said he was once the target of an Israeli assassination attempt.

Israel warplanes blasted a separate Gaza City security compound Sunday night near the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Speaking about the rocket attack, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said it represented “a new level of threat.”

“You try to deal with it in all sorts of ways — by intelligence, by prevention and by struggling against those places where you suspect and discover that there are factories or workshops for manufacturing those rockets,” Ben-Eliezer said.

Arafat, who has been restricted to the West Bank town of Ramallah by Israeli forces for the past two months, denounced the airstrikes and called for international intervention. That oft-stated plea has brought many foreign diplomatic delegations, but no international peacekeepers.

“These attacks prove that (Israel’s) government is not interested in quiet and stability,” said Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia. “It should be clear there is no military solution to the conflict.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met senior Cabinet ministers and security officials Sunday, and Israeli media reports suggested the army might reoccupy Palestinian areas close to Israel for an extended period to push rockets out of range.

However, Israel has so far refrained from taking over Palestinian cities and towns for extended periods.

Such action would make troops vulnerable to attacks by Palestinians.

Israel and the United States have been pressing Arafat to clamp down on militants, including the Al Aqsa Brigades, which is part of Arafat’s Fatah movement.

In a leaflet distributed Monday, the group issued a seemingly contradictory statement that said the movement had “decided to dismantle” in line with a decision made by Arafat and the Fatah leadership.

However, no such decision has been announced by Fatah leaders, who could not immediately be reached for comment. The leaflet also strongly suggested that the group's attacks would continue.

“This does not mean in any way that our resistance to the occupation will halt. It will continue in all of Palestine as long as the aggressive Zionist campaign against our people continues,” the Al Aqsa Brigades statement read.

Palestinian security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police prevented a suicide attack Monday when they arrested a militant from the Islamic Jihad movement as he was on his way from the West Bank town of Tulkarem to carry out a bombing in Israel.

Security sources also said that the Palestinians arrested four Hamas men several days ago in Gaza. The detainees included Adnan Ghoul, regarded as one of the top figures in the group’s military wing, which has carried out multiple suicide bombings in Israel.

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