At least 13 killed in Gaza City blasts

By IBRAHIM BARZAK
The Associated Press

KHALIL HAMRA / AP A Palestinian man helps a wounded man at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early today.

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The attack came a week after Hamas carried out a double suicide bombing in the southern city of Beersheba, killing 16 Israelis and breaking a six-month lull in major violence against Israel.

The Israeli military said the air force targeted the site, near the Israeli border, because it was being used by Hamas for bomb assembly and the training of anti-Israeli fighters. The Hamas military wing, in a statement, acknowledged its use as a training site.

Hundreds of Hamas members gathered at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City — some with blood on their clothes from carrying victims — shouting "revenge, revenge."

The Israeli statement said training at the site "was led by senior Hamas terrorists who were involved in the carrying out of deadly terror attacks and attempted attacks." The military said a suicide bomb prepared at the site was discovered last Tuesday in the underwear of a Palestinian at the Erez checkpoint between Gaza and Israel.

The statement also listed events that it said took place at the site in recent days, including assembly of a large bomb and a suicide bomber's vest, practice in hijacking vehicles and training in preparing and firing mortars and rockets.

The growing spiral of violence could further complicate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw troops and settlers from the occupied Gaza Strip by the end of 2005.

Violent Palestinian groups are determined to claim any Israeli pullout as a victory, but the army has vowed to smash armed factions first. Israeli leaders had pledged harsh reprisals, including the resumption of a campaign to assassinate Hamas leaders, in response to the Beersheba bombings.

In other developments:

Israel's defense minister Shaul Mofaz yesterday said he is moving another planned section of the West Bank separation barrier closer to Israel. Israel says it needs the barrier to keep out suicide bombers. Sharon has said he wants to keep several large West Bank settlements as part of any future peace deal.
 
One-third of the 425-mile barrier already has been built in the northern West Bank, but army planners have redrawn parts of the remaining route further to the south to comply with a court order that said the wall's path in the north has cut off Palestinians from their land and other services.

Israel's efforts to closely monitor Iran's missile program, and to bolster its own early-warning systems, suffered a setback yesterday when the launch of a sophisticated spy satellite failed. A rocket that was to have carried the Ofek-6 remote-sensing satellite into orbit crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after its liftoff from Israel's Palmachim air and missile base south of Tel Aviv, Israel.

It was the second significant failure in less than a week of a high-tech Israeli military system. The missile interceptor Arrow II, in a test-firing off the coast of California last Thursday, proved unable to hit its target.

Information from Reuters and the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.