Military

DATE=7/23/2002

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ISRAEL PALESTINIANS (L / 2ND UPDATE)

NUMBER=2-292331

BYLINE=LARRY JAMES

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

/// UPDATES CR 2-292325 ///

INTRO: Palestinian factions are vowing revenge after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City killed the commander of the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and 14 others, including nine children. V-O-A's Larry James in Jerusalem reports the attack has also drawn strong international condemnation.

TEXT: Hamas officials said that Salah Shehade, the commander of the group's Izzedine al-Qassam military wing, his wife, and three children were killed in an Israeli air strike on his home.

Palestinian hospital officials say more than 100 people were wounded in the attack that destroyed several nearby homes.

The Hamas military wing has vowed retaliation for the killing of its leader.

Israel says Mr. Shehade was behind hundreds of attacks against Israeli civilians during the past several years. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the operation one of Israel's "biggest successes," but said he regrets the loss of innocent life.

Palestinian officials called the attack a war crime and said Israel had to have known there would be civilian casualties when it used the power of a F-16 warplane in an attack in a densely populated neighborhood.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said that no one with any shred of human decency could have even conceived of such an attack.

/// ARAFAT ACT - IN ARABIC FADE UNDER ///

Speaking to reporters outside his headquarters in Ramallah, Mr. Arafat said he cannot understand why the world is doing nothing to stop, what he called, these horrible crimes.

Witnesses said the attack came without warning shortly before midnight.

The strike drew sharp international criticism. Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher called it a war crime. U-N Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned it and the European Union described it as disproportionate and unjustifiable under any circumstances. Britain called the Israeli attack unacceptable and counterproductive.

There were numerous clashes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the hours following the air strike.

The Israeli army says it killed three Palestinians in a gun-battle near the West Bank city of Nablus. Two members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, were killed during an exchange of gunfire in the Gaza Strip.

NEB/LDJ/JWH/KBK