Mideast Violence Is Nearly Non-Stop

A Palestinian gunman infiltrated a Jewish settlement in Gaza late Thursday and opened fire, killing four people, and six Palestinians died in Israeli raids early Friday in the latest episodes of nearly non-stop violence in the Mideast.

The gunman infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Atzmona in southern Gaza, opening fire with an assault rifle and throwing grenades at a high school that combines religious studies and military training, the military said. Four Israelis were killed and 20 wounded, five seriously, according to rescue service officials. In a gun battle, soldiers shot and killed the attacker.

"I was watching television when I heard gunfire outside very close," said Elisheva Weiss, a mother of nine, talking by phone from the settlement to Israel Radio. She said settlers were instructed by loudspeaker to stay in their houses and keep their lights off.

The military wing of the militant Hamas claimed responsibility and said the attacker was Mohammed Farhat, 19, from Gaza City.

Early Friday, Israeli forces moved into Bethlehem from two directions and troops poised at two other entrances to the town, Palestinians said. Also, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at Palestinian headquarters in Bethlehem, a complex hit hard in previous air strikes. The Israeli military said it attacked a military security building as part of its "efforts to prevent terrorism."

Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian police base north of Gaza City after midnight. Gunboats fired machine guns and helicopters fired three missiles at the base, witnesses said. Three people were killed — a policeman and a rescue worker in an ambulance — and six others wounded, doctors said.

Israeli gunfire hit a police explosives storage building, setting off blasts that could be heard all over Gaza City, witnesses said.

In southern Gaza, Israeli forces entered the village of Hozaa, next to Khan Younis, Palestinian security officials said.

Four people were killed there as well, including the area commander of Palestinian security. Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mefraj was the highest-ranking officer ever to die in a clash with Israeli forces, Palestinian security officials said.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

In a move to step up pressure on the diplomatic front, President Bush on Thursday dispatched an envoy back to the Middle East to try to calm the escalating violence.

Mr. Bush is sending U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region next week, he announced in a hastily scheduled appearance in the White House Rose Garden.

"I am deeply concerned about the tragic loss of life and escalating violence in the Middle East," Bush said with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell at his side.

Mr. Bush said "there are no assurances" sending Zinni would lead to a resumption of peace talks.

"That's not going to prevent our country from trying," Bush told reporters as he announced the step.

Mr. Bush called upon Palestinian leader Yasser Araft to make a "maximum effort to end terrorism against Israel." He also called on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and others "to do everything they can" to end the violence.

The President made the decision to dispatch Zinni back to the troubled region after his national security team advised that more direct U.S. involvement could help break an accelerating cycle of Palestinian suicide bombings and harsh Israeli reprisals.

Mr. Bush suggested the best path back to diplomacy was for both sides to embrace a truce plan put forth last year by CIA Director George Tenet. Under the proposal, Israel would lift its sweeping travel bans on Palestinians and pull back troops to positions they held before fighting broke out in September 2000.

The Palestinians would be required to go after suspected militants and prevent attacks on Israelis.

"Our strategy is a well-thought-out strategy," Mr. Bush said. "It's one that reminds both parties there is an obligation to seek peace."

Earlier Thursday, Israeli troops stormed through two West Bank refugee camps before dawn and rocketing a police station after nightfall in the middle of one of Gaza's most crowded camps, sending Palestinian civilians running for cover. In the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli airstrikes on Arafat's local headquarters hit so hard they blew open bolted doors in nearby homes.

Israeli leaders said the campaign was aimed at forcing the Palestinians to stop terror attacks, but there was no sign of that on Thursday.

A Palestinian suicide bomber walked into a Jewish settlement's hotel complex and blew himself up in the lobby, injuring four people and sending canned goods and cereal boxes flying in the adjoining supermarket.

Another would-be suicide bomber, at a trendy Jerusalem cafe, was thwarted when the cafe owner, a waiter and a customer jumped him, shoved him outside and grabbed his bag after they saw wires dangling from it. "Who, me?" the man asked when confronted, cafe owner Gabi Aldoratz told Israel radio.

At a shopping center in Pardes Hanna, a city in Israel's north, a resident spotted a suspicious object and called police. As a bomb disposal team approached, the bomb exploded, police said. No one was hurt.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, stung by unprecedented criticism from the administration of President Bush, declared that the conflict was "imposed on Israel by the Palestinian Authority and its leader."

"Israel has never declared war on the Palestinians. Israel fights back against terror organizations in the framework of its right of self-defense. He who started this war has the power to stop it, but continues to prefer a war of terrorism," Sharon's office said in a statement released late Wednesday.

That was in response to Secretary Powell telling a congressional committee earlier Wednesday: "If you declare war on the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed, I don't know that leads us anywhere."

The State Department kept up its criticism Thursday. Spokesman Richard Boucher said Israeli operations "should be halted now," adding, "It is imperative that the Israel Defense Force exercise the utmost restraint and discipline to avoid further harm to civilians."

A defiant Arafat, meanwhile, insisted that Palestinians would not be cowed by the escalating Israeli strikes.

"No one can shake the Palestinians," he told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Thursday, hours after Israel fired missiles at his headquarters complex for the third night in a row. "If the Israelis believe that they can frighten them by tanks or by missiles or by Apaches (helicopter gunships), then they are mistaken."

Arafat adviser Ahmed Abdel Rahman said that the windows were blown out in the room where Arafat and Moratinos had met just moments before.

The suicide bombing that injured four Israelis, one of them seriously, took place at the entrance to the Ariel settlement, the West Bank's second largest. A radical PLO group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claimed responsibility in a telephone call to The Associated Press.

Helicopters later fired three missiles into PFLP headquarters in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, destroying the single-story building completely, eyewitnesses said. The army said helicopters attacked two police stations in Beit Hanoun but said nothing about the PFLP offices.

The thwarted suicide bombing in Jerusalem took place just hours earlier. Police chief Mickey Levy said the Palestinian who was overpowered by the cafe owner, a waiter and a patron had clearly intended to carry out a suicide attack.

"I can't say anything more, other than to say we had a miracle here," Aldoratz, the cafe owner, told Israel radio.

Sharon ordered the military strikes, among the most intense and wide-ranging of the 17-month-old conflict, after more than two dozen Israelis were killed last weekend in a string of Palestinian attacks including a suicide bombing in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem and the killing of seven Israeli soldiers at a West Bank roadblock. The past week has been one of the bloodiest in 17 months of fighting.

In the West Bank, about 80 tanks and armored vehicles entered the town of Tulkarem late Wednesday and surrounded the adjacent refugee camps of Tulkarem and Nur Shams, meeting sharp resistance from dozens of Palestinian gunmen, witnesses said. Twenty-four hours later, gunmen and soldiers were still exchanging fire.

"We had to get into the refugee camps, which are laboratories of terror," said a brigade commander, Col. Yair Golan. "They should know we can reach everywhere — there's no refuge for them."

Nine Palestinians were killed in the fighting, including a rescue worker, Palestinians said. In New York, the United Nations said one of those shot dead was a U.N. aid worker in an ambulance with U.N. markings. The military was checking the report

In the West Bank village of Siris, Israeli forces killed a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad, Mohammed Anani, 27, who tried to shoot at soldiers as they approached his home, witnesses said. Anani had been wanted by Israel for involvement in suicide bombings and had served time in Palestinian jails.

Also Thursday, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a Gaza City complex that had been hit many times before. After Thursday's strike, only two of 25 buildings in the compound remained standing. The missiles sent rubble and glass flying hundreds of yards, and eight people were wounded. Children at a nearby school ran from the area.

Two Palestinians were killed in gun battles with Israeli troops in central and northern Gaza on Thursday, Palestinian doctors said. Also Thursday, Israeli gunboats fired missiles at a Palestinian police roadblock near the Gaza City coast and wounded 13 policemen, three critically, Palestinian security officials said.

Throughout Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian police closed roads around security installations Thursday and evacuated schools and government ministries for fear of more air strikes. After dark Thursday in the West Bank town of Dura, Israel hit the headquarters of Force 17, an elite Palestinian force, but no one was inside. Helicopters also hit the local headquarters of Arafat's Fatah in nearby Yatta, the military said.