GAZA (Islamweb & News Agencies) – International pressure on Palestinian President, Yaser Arafat continues to mount despite Israel’s on-going vicious extra-judicial killings, the blind pursuit of which claimed the lives of two children in Hebron Tuesday. (Read photo caption below) Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces killed at least three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip hours after U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni told both sides he would press on with a peace mission that has been plagued by constant violence.
Palestinian security and medical officials said Israeli helicopters, firing missiles late on Tuesday, killed two men in a residential area near the Khan Younis refugee camp, which overlooks the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim.
They said the helicopters returned as rescuers and onlookers gathered and a third man was killed when the aircraft and Israeli occupation ground forces opened fire. Twelve people were wounded.
Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh, chief of Palestinian Public Security, told Reuters: ``It was...an ambush planned by the Israeli occupation army.''
Zinni, who had seemed almost ready to pack up and go home after two weeks spent in the region to the accompaniment of some of the worst violence in months, said on Tuesday he would stay on after talks with Israeli and Palestinian security officials.
However, there was little sign of a breakthrough toward a truce and in a statement after the meeting, Israel reaffirmed its policy of killing Islamic Resistance men in targeted attacks which Palestinians condemn as assassinations.
Palestinian officials have said that Israel's strikes against militants only fan the flames of violence -- it botched an attempt to kill an Islamic Jihad Resistance leader in a helicopter missile attack in the West Bank on Monday.
But world pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to crack down on Palestinian Resistance leaders after recent bombings in Israel has grown so strong that even the death of two Palestinian children in Monday's strike drew little international criticism.
PHOTO CAPTION:
A relative kisses the body of slain Palestinian teenager Shadi Arafi before his funeral in the West Bank city of Hebron, December 11, 2001. Israeli helicopters killed two Palestinian children on Monday in a bungled strike on the car of an Islamic militant, who Israel said had planned bombing attacks. (Loay Abu Haykel/Reuters)