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Israel continues air strikes
- AP
RAMALLAH (WEST BANK), DEC. 4. Israel unleashed air strikes today also in retaliation for the Palestinian suicide bombings, and three missiles hit 50 meters from Mr. Yasser Arafat's office as the Palestinian leader worked inside. Mr. Arafat was not injured and Israel said he was not the target of the strike.
In the Gaza Strip, a 15-year-old boy and a member of the security forces were killed in an Israeli missile attack on a security installation, doctors said. The rockets sent hundreds of school children running for cover, and doctors said more than 100 persons, most of them youths, were injured.
Arafat's charge
Mr. Arafat, speaking to CNN after the air strike on his compound, accused Israel of trying to undermine his efforts to combat terrorism. The Palestinian Authority has rounded up some 130 members of the militant Islamic Jihad and Hamas groups in response to weekend suicide bombings and shootings on Israelis that killed 26 people. ``They (the Israelis) don't want me to succeed and for this he (the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon) is escalating his military activities against our people, against our towns, against our cities, against our establishments,'' Arafat said. ``He doesn't want a peace process to start.''
Early Tuesday, Israeli troops tore up the landing strip of Gaza International Airport, a symbol of fledgling Palestinian sovereignty. The airport had been a vital link between the Palestinians and the rest of the world since it was opened in 1998.
It was closed to regular traffic for most of the past 14 months of fighting, but Mr. Arafat had been able to use it for his frequent trips abroad. Israel also sent tanks into parts of Ramallah and the West Bank town of Nablus. In Ramallah, two tanks came within about 800 m of Mr. Arafat's compound.
The U.S. administration did not criticise the Israeli military action. In Washington, the White House spokesman, Mr. Ari Fleischer, said, ``The President's point of view is Israel is a sovereign power. It has a right to defend itself.''
- AP
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