Gunfire drowns peace talks again

Palestinian ultra kills 6; Israel responds with bombing, tank assault

RAMALLAH, TULKARM, JAN 18: Israel destroyed a Palestinian security compound in an air strike and tightened a ring of armour around Yasser Arafat on Friday after a Palestinian gunman killed six people at a Jewish birthday party.

Israel’s retaliatory raid in Tulkarm killed one policeman and injured 40 people. Witnesses said troops shot dead another Palestinian during a stone-throwing clash near Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah.

Hani Odeh, 22, was taking part in a demonstration at a point where Israeli tanks had moved within 30 metres of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s office when he was shot.

The tanks moved in after a Palestinian gunman attacked a packed banquet hall inside Israel on Thursday. Palestinian hospital officials said Odeh had died from bullets which penetrated his head and neck. Arafat’s Palestinian Authority had been quick to condemn the rampage by the Palestinian militant.

Witnesses said Israeli F-16 warplanes fired missiles at the main security compound in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, reducing the building to rubble. Hospital officials said one policeman was killed and at least 40 people were wounded. The Israeli Army said the air raid was a response to the shooting spree in the northern Israeli city of Hadera on Thursday.

The six killed in the birthday party were mostly Russian-speaking immigrants. People in the hall hurled chairs and bottles at the assailant and then police shot him dead. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, attached to Arafat’s Fatah faction, said it carried out the attack to avenge the killing on Monday of one of its leaders, Raed al-Karmi, in a bomb blast it blamed on Israel.

‘‘There will be more successful attacks that will plant fearing the hearts of the Zionist enemies. Revenge is coming,’’ the group said.
‘‘The Israeli tanks have practically occupied about 55 per cent of the town now. Thirteen neighbourhoods are under complete curfew,’’ said Mustafa Barghouthi, a Palestinian human rights activist based in Ramallah. (Reuters)