Six Fatah activists killed in blast

NABLUS (WEST BANK), JULY 30. An explosion ripped through a car parts store in the West Bank early on Monday and killed six Palestinian activists in Mr. Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in one of the deadliest single episodes in 10 months of violence in West Asia.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli helicopters fired rockets at the Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza City, wounding two policemen and sending white smoke rising from the compound as people ran frantically from the buildings into the street.

Israeli military said the compound was used for manufacturing weapons and mortar rounds. Jewish settlements in Gaza have come under frequent mortar attack, and the Israelis have repeatedly criticised Mr. Arafat, Palestinian leader, for failing to prevent the attacks. The police compound is near Mr. Arafat's seaside offices, though he was out of the region at the time.

The West Bank blast destroyed the car parts store - a roadside tin shack outside the West Bank city of Nablus - and came only hours after a tense confrontation between Israeli police and Palestinians at Jerusalem's most contested religious shrine.

Palestinians called the pre-dawn blast part of Israel's efforts to kill suspected militants. ``The Israeli Government continues its policy of assassination,'' said the Palestinian Cabinet Secretary, Mr. Ahmed Abdel Rahman. ``This policy will destroy any hope for peace. Resistance will continue.''

But Israel's Deputy Defence Minister, Ms. Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, called the explosion a ``work accident,'' Israel's euphemism for a Palestinian-made bomb that goes off prematurely. ``This is not the first time that the Palestinians have accused Israel of assassinations when explosions like this occurred,'' she told army radio.

The force of the blast blew the roof off the shack, and it was badly burned inside, suggesting the explosion came from within the structure. Palestinian witnesses said they did not hear helicopters or tank guns - signals of earlier Israeli attacks.

Mansour Barahmah, a Palestinian, said he was sleeping when he heard a powerful explosion shortly after 1 a.m. on Monday.

``I went there immediately and found a fire,'' he said. ``The bodies were still burning.''

The bodies were dismembered by the explosion, and some body parts were tossed 30 metres from a table where the men had been sitting on old car seats, he said. Playing cards, which were apparently in use at the time, were smeared with blood.

All six of the dead were members of Fatah, and regularly slept in the shack, fearing the Israelis would attack them in their homes, Palestinian witnesses said. A seventh man in the shack was seriously wounded, they added.

Also on Monday, an Israeli was stabbed, apparently by a Palestinian, in the Old City of Jerusalem. Police said he was critically wounded.

Two paramilitary border police were shot and seriously wounded at a checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank, according to police and media reports. The gunshots came from a passing car.

Two Palestinians, aged 17 and 11, were shot by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip near by border with Egypt, Palestinian security sources said. The Palestinians claimed the Israelis fired without provocation, the Israeli army said troops came under fire from anti-tank grenades and shot back.

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Section  : International
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