JERUSALEM (Islamweb & New Agencies) - Shots, mortar blasts and calls for vengeance echoed through the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Thursday as Israel escalates it vigalante security attacks. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance group Hamas has vowed to avenge Tuesday's missile strike in the West Bank which killed two top officials in the group. Six others, including two boys, were also killed.
The killings brought simmering violence to a boiling point as gun battles erupted across the West Bank, including the town of Hebron where a Palestinian was killed during a lengthy exchange of fire between Israeli occupation troops and Palestinian Resistance men(Read photo caption below).
Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Tuesday's massacre, had sparked such outrage across the West Bank and Gaza Strip that the situation was ``out of control.''
Gun battles erupted near the West Bank towns of Tulkarm, Nablus and Ramallah on Wednesday night and the Israeli occupation army reported its troops came under Palestinian fire in around a dozen incidents. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Three mortar rounds were reportedly fired at internationally illegal Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land in southern Gaza.
A spokeswoman for the Saroka hospital in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba confirmed a woman from a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip was brought to the hospital for treatment for light wounds sustained in the attack.
POWELL CALLS ISRAELI STRIKE OVERKILL
US Secretary Colin Powell slammed the Israeli strike as ``too aggressive,'' telling CNN it ``just serves to increase the level of tension and violence in the region.''
But and as expected teethless sharply worded criticism from the United States and the European Union, which called the attack ``provocative,'' did not deter Israel from its policy of targeted killings of Palestinian activists.
Basquing in Western teethless Western friendly criticism, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said after the inner-cabinet approved a continuation of the policy that Israel will continue to reserve what it calls its basic right to self-defense and to fulfil its obligation to protect the lives of its citizens.
Israel has assassinated'' around 60 Palestinian activists since the uprising against Israeli occupation erupted last September after peace negotiations deadlocked.
``REVENGE, REVENGE''
In Nablus, tens of thousands of Palestinians, some firing semi-automatic rifles into the air, chanted ``Revenge, revenge'' and ``Death to Israel'' during an emotional funeral procession for the eight dead, including eight and 10-year-old brothers.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in Rome to drum up support from Pope John Paul and Italy for international monitors, told reporters that such a force was needed ``very, very quickly.'' Israel opposes the move.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Medical personnel assist a wounded Palestinian after Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at hundreds of Palestinian stone throwers during light clashes in the West Bank town of Nablus August 1, 2001. Palestinian mourners screamed for revenge on Wednesday after Israel killed eight Palestinians, including two children, in a missile strike it defended as an operation to save Israeli lives. (Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)