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Israel strikes back, nobly killing two militants in a West Bank hospital.
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NYTIMES:
August 22, 2003
Israel Kills Two Palestinian Militants in West Bank Hospital
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:53 p.m. ET
NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinian militants inside a West Bank hospital on Friday, extending a new spiral of violence that has smashed a cease-fire vital to a U.S.-backed ``road map'' peace plan.
The killings came as tens of thousands of angry Palestinians calling for revenge marched in the funeral of Ismail Abu Shanab, a U.S.-educated Hamas leader who was assassinated by an Israeli helicopter missile strike in Gaza city on Thursday.
Islamist militant groups called off a seven-week-old cease-fire after Israel killed Abu Shanab in an attack that followed a Hamas suicide bombing -- a relapse into tit-for-tat bloodshed that doomed previous peacemaking.
``We love martyrdom and we seek martyrdom,'' Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, another senior Hamas political leader who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in June, told the crowd as it chanted, ``Revenge, revenge!''
Israel threatened more attacks on Palestinian militants. ``This is only the beginning,'' a senior Israeli security source said. ``We plan serious retaliation on the terrorist infrastructure,'' he added.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush's main focus was on restoring Israeli-Palestinian dialogue broken off after the Abu Shanab killing.
Asked if Washington was going to urge restraint, he said: ``We have always said that Israel has the right to defend itself but we have also always pointed out that the parties, including Israel, need to keep in mind the consequences of the actions they take...the effect of those actions on the peace process.''
``All parties have a responsibility to do everything they can to end terrorism. I can't emphasize that point enough. If we are going to move forward in the peace process, terror must end and people must act to dismantle terrorist organizations,'' he told journalists traveling with Bush en route to Washington state.
Bush also announced a freeze on the assets of six Hamas leaders and five groups accused of supporting the group and ordered the Treasury Department to act.
MILITANTS CORNERED, KILLED
In the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said three Palestinian militants being sought by Israel were sheltering in a small rooftop room of Rafidya hospital when Israeli forces stormed up and surrounded the building.
They said a shoot-out ensued with soldiers firing into the room, killing two militants and wounding the third. All three were members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed faction within the mainstream Fatah national movement of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Israeli security sources said the troops targeted militants who had been hiding in the hospital for some time and were wanted for involvement in a suicide bombing in Israel on August 12 and some ambush shootings in the West Bank.
The Brigades claimed responsibility for the bombing, which killed one Israeli, and said it was retribution for army raids for wanted militants that continued sporadically after armed factions declared a unilateral three-month cease-fire on June 29.
Israel renewed search-and-arrest operations in Nablus and other occupied West Bank cities shortly after a Hamas suicide bomber killed 20 people on a Jerusalem bus on Tuesday, an attack that Hamas said avenged recent army killings of Palestinians.
On Thursday, the army reimposed a curfew on the city, one of the largest in the West Bank and a major stronghold of militants who have spearheaded a 34-month-old uprising for statehood.
Osama el-Baz, a special troubleshooting envoy of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, visited Arafat at his West Bank headquarters to deliver what the emissary said was a message warning of impending catastrophe.
``All sides have to take steps to avoid escalation and to implement the road map,'' Baz, who met Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom later, told reporters in Ramallah.
Baz was quoted later on Israel Radio as saying Palestinian Authority leaders requested more time from Israel to pressure Hamas and militant ally Islamic Jihad to stop attacks. He declined to elaborate on proposals discussed.
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