Israelis kill Palestinian behind rocket attacks

JERUSALEM — For the second night in a row, Israel staged a deadly missile strike on Friday at Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza Strip.

Majid Matat, a field operative for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, was killed when two missiles fired by Israeli aircraft incinerated his white Subaru just after dusk near the town of Beit Hanoun, according to Palestinian officials and witnesses. Two of his comrades escaped.

Matat and his companions had just fired a homemade rocket toward Israel, using an open field as a launching ground, and were driving back toward Gaza City when the strike occurred, according to Palestinian security sources.

The attack came fewer than 24 hours after Israeli missiles hit a car carrying members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad as it was traveling through the Jabaliya refugee camp. Eight people were killed, including a senior Islamic Jihad commander, at least two of his associates and several bystanders, according to Palestinian officials and the Israeli army.

Israel declared an all-out campaign against Islamic Jihad after the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on Wednesday in the northern coastal town of Hadera, which killed five Israelis. But it has said that other Palestinian militants will be targeted as well, particularly if they are planning or carrying out attacks.

The Hadera bombing came a day after Israel killed an Islamic Jihad commander in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarim during what the army described as an arrest raid.

The week's events have cast a heavy pall over hopes the two sides might return to the bargaining table after Israel's withdrawal of soldiers and settlers from the Gaza Strip, completed last month.

Israel, which has promised a wide-ranging offensive against the militants, seemed little inclined to heed a Bush administration call for restraint.

"Israel, of course, has a right to defend itself," said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Thursday. But he added that the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should "consider the consequences of its actions" in relation to the goal of achieving a negotiated peace.

International mediators for the Middle East conflict Friday condemned the suicide attack in Hadera by Islamic Jihad and pressed Syria to expel the Palestinian militant group from its territory.

The so-called "quartet" of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations called on all parties in the region to show restraint and not let a surge in violence undermine the fragile quest for peace.

In an unusual reference to Syria, the quartet statement "urges the Syrian government to take immediate action to close the offices of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and to prevent the use of its territory by armed groups engaged in terrorist acts."

McCormack said the Palestinian Authority had joined quartet members in recent days in expressing concern about continuing support for groups such as Islamic Jihad, which have stopped adhering to an already shaky cease-fire with Israel declared in February and have resumed rocket attacks on Israeli targets.

Information on Syria from Reuters