Israeli security forces killed two children in a botched assassination attempt against an Islamic militant in the West Bank town of Hebron yesterday. The deaths occurred when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired several missiles into a car at a busy traffic junction.
One of the children, three year-old Burhan al Himuni, is the nephew of Mohamed Ayoub Sidr, who was the target of the attack.
Mr Sidr (26) is a leading figure of the Islamic Jihad movement in Hebron. Israeli officials claimed his name appeared on a list of 33 suspects whom they asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest.
Residents of Hebron said Mr Sidr heard the helicopter and jumped out of the car in time to save his life. He was nonetheless wounded, along with 11 other people.
Burhan al Himuni's father, who was holding the three-year-old when he died, is in a critical condition in Hebron's Al Ahli hopsital. The other dead boy was named as Shadi Arafa, aged 13.
Palestinians are all the more outraged because the attack followed a joint declaration by the Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah movements on Sunday night that they would stop all operations inside Israel if the Israelis halted assassinations and the bombardment of Palestinian infrastructure. But the groups said they would not cease attacks in the occupied territories.
The offer was made in a pamphlet widely circulated throughout the West Bank. It was ignored by the Israeli government and most of the Western media. But it was significant because the extremist Islamist groups signed it with Fatah, the party of the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, and because the Islamists differentiated between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Israel.
Many Palestinians condemn suicide bombings that target civilians inside Israel, but consider attacks on occupation troops and settlers to be legitimate. It is a distinction that neither the Israeli government nor their US mentors care to make.
US officials, like the Middle East envoy and retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, do not ask Israel to end its 34-year-old occupation, but they criticise the "inadequate actions" of Mr Arafat in preventing suicide bombings.
The attack occurred just minutes after the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, met Gen Zinni, who has been in Israel and the West Bank since November 26th. He has threatened to leave the region today if there is no progress towards a ceasefire.
Mr Sharon's office said the Prime Minister "attaches great importance" to Mr Zinni's mission and had claimed "Israel would do its utmost to help him."
A statement by the Palestinian Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, called Mr Sharon "a child killer who does not respect the sanctity of life" and added that "targeting civilian cars in a crowded Hebron Market, thus exposing tens of civilians to grave danger, is outrageous". Mr Marwan Barghouti, a top aide to Mr Arafat, called the Hebron attack "an ugly crime" and demanded that the US publicly condemn it.
The extreme violence of the past two weeks started with Israel's assassination of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, a military leader of the extremist group Hamas, on November 23rd. To avenge Abu Hanoud's death, Hamas staged the suicide bombings that killed 26 people in Jerusalem and Haifa at the beginning of December.
The method used to kill Mr Abu Hanoud - missiles fired into his car - near Nablus was exactly that used yesterday in the attempt on Mr Sidr's life. Nearly 180 of the more than 1,050 people killed since September 2001 have been Palestinian children under the age of 16, according to Dr Eyad el Sarraj who runs a mental health programme for traumatised children in the Gaza Strip. "I don't believe in religion, but there is a God in every child and no one has the right to kill a child - neither Jewish nor Palestinian," Dr Sarraj said. The killing of children has had a powerful emotional impact abroad. Calls for revenge, and more attacks, are sure to follow the death of two innocents yesterday.
Israeli helicopters raided Palestinian security positions in the northern Gaza strip late last night, firing at least four missiles near Beit Jala, Palestinian officials said. The target appeared to be a base of Yasser Arafat's elite Force-17 guard. There were no reports of any casualties.