By
The Associated Press
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli helicopters rocketed headquarters of Force 17, Yasser Arafat's elite guard, in Gaza and the West Bank town of Ramallah yesterday, retaliating for a wave of bombings, including a suicide attack that killed two Israeli teen-agers.
Red flares lit up the night sky over Ramallah, where two people were killed in the assault, and flames leaped from burning buildings and cars as firefighters tried to put out multiple blazes.
Doctors in Ramallah said the dead included a member of Force 17 and a female civilian, and that several people were injured. In Gaza City, at least nine Palestinians were wounded, two of them critically, doctors said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly accused Force 17 of involvement in attacks against Israeli civilians.
"The purpose is to strike directly at those responsible for terrorism," the Israeli military said in a statement. The military said it hit the Force 17 headquarters in Ramallah, and four Force 17 targets around Gaza City and Deir al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip - including a training camp and an arms depot.
The buildings under attack - all in areas governed by Arafat's Palestinian Authority under peace agreements - had been evacuated after the Israeli military warned the Palestinians to leave.
The nighttime assault came hours after a suicide bomber detonated nail-filled explosives strapped to his body near a group of Jewish seminary students waiting at the roadside near the West Bank, killing two. The previous day, militants carried out back-to-back attacks, including a suicide attack that injured two dozen people.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for both suicide bombings and said more bombers were ready to strike.
Sharon, who had been under mounting pressure to respond the string of attacks, called his security Cabinet into session minutes before the Israeli offensive began.
"We are witnessing grave terrorist activities - terrorist activities that the chairman of the Palestinian Authority (Arafat) has not been willing until now to control," Sharon said.
Israel says Arafat has released hundreds of Islamic militants from prison in recent months, and that gunmen of the Tanzim militia affiliated with Arafat's Fatah movement have killed a number of Israelis in shooting attacks during the past six months of violence.
Since the uprising began in late September, 443 people have been killed, including 362 Palestinians, 62 Israeli Jews and 19 others.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Amr denied the Palestinian Authority had any ties to the bombings in recent days.
The Israeli assault came soon after an Arab summit ended in Jordan. Israel had apparently wanted to avoid any retaliation during the gathering of Arab heads of state.
Israel launched a similar helicopter assault in October, striking Palestinian police buildings in Ramallah and near Arafat's headquarters in Gaza City, in retaliation for the mob killing of two Israeli reserve soldiers in Ramallah.
The latest suicide bomber targeted a group of teen-agers who had been dropped off at a gas station yesterday morning near the communal farm of Sdeh Hemed, about 15 miles northeast of Tel Aviv near the boundary of the West Bank. The teens were waiting for a bus to their school in the West Bank.
The assailant, described as a man in his late 20s with black hair and a mustache, approached the youngsters.
"He looked at them. Then the explosion went off," said one of the students, Rafael Somer, 15, suppressing tears. "I was hurled backward. When I got up, I saw one of my friends without hands. Another friend was torn apart." Somer was lightly injured.
Another survivor, 12-year-old Hananel Twito, said he became suspicious because the stranger wore a black leather jacket zipped up to the neck, despite the hot weather. The bomb was studded with nails, for greater deadliness.
The boys killed in the blast were identified as Eliran Rosenberg, 16, and Naftali Landskoren, 14.
Bombs also were discovered yesterday morning in markets in two other towns, Netanya and Petah Tikvah. They were exploded safely. Earlier this month, four people, including a Palestinian suicide bomber, were killed in a blast in Netanya.
Hamas released a video of a young man it said was the suicide bomber in Tuesday's attack. He identified himself as Dia Hussein Mohammed Tawil of Ramallah. Sitting with automatic rifles at his side, he said he was one of the Hamas "martyrs prepared to turn their bodies and their bones into shrapnel that will kill the Zionist occupiers."
In the West Bank town of Hebron, meanwhile, seven Palestinian-owned cars were torched in the Abu Sneineh neighborhood, apparently by Jewish settlers avenging the killing of a 10-month-old Israeli baby girl earlier this week by Palestinian gunfire. The army said snipers fired the shots at the Jewish enclave from the Abu Sneineh area.
