By
The Associated Press
BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank - Israeli helicopters swooped down on a pickup truck yesterday and fired rockets at a Palestinian gunman the army had been tracking for days, an attack Israel said signals a new policy targeting organizers of recent violence.
The killing of Hussein Abayat, described by Israel as the "terrorist mastermind" responsible for the deaths of three of its soldiers, came on the day President Clinton launched his latest attempt to salvage the peace process, meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Washington.
Two women passing by were killed in the attack in this bucolic village bordering Bethlehem and 11 people were wounded, including another well-known Palestinian gunman.
Despite Prime Minister Ehud Barak's earlier pledges not to take pre-emptive actions - a policy he had said would destroy prospects for a return to the negotiating table - the move was a concession to army chiefs who have been eager to strike the Palestinians with greater force.
"It was a pre-emptive strike by intention," Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told The Associated Press. "For sure it is a signal. If the game is a guerrilla war, we are the champions of the world."
More than 180 people have been killed in six weeks of clashes, the vast majority of them Palestinians. But targeting leaders raised the stakes, and the Palestinians swiftly pledged retaliation.
Hassan Asfour, a senior Palestinian negotiator known for his good relations with the Israelis, told Palestinian television he had warned them that "the long arm cannot reach out without having its fingers cut off."
Abayat was a commander in Fatah, Arafat's faction of the PLO, and a leaflet signed by the group appeared in Bethlehem yesterday night calling Israeli army chief Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz a "wanted man."
Clinton was meeting with Arafat yesterday and with Barak on Sunday, probably his final effort to salvage a peace process he cultivated so carefully for seven years.
The president's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, declined to discuss the specifics of the incident yesterday but said: "Violence breeds violence and we must find a way to break this cycle. It's important for people on both sides to do all they can to try to achieve that."
Mofaz predicted a rash of violence in the immediate future, but said the time had come to show Israel's power.
"In the short run, this response will increase the activity of armed Fatah men in the area," he acknowledged to Israel radio. "But in the long run, everyone who wants to harm Israeli army soldiers and citizens of Israel must know that he won't be spared."
