JERUSALEM (Islamweb & Agencies) - Violence between Israel and the Palestinians has surged, with each side blaming the other for the escalation as air strikes, bombings, shootings and stabbings mount.Israeli helicopter gunships fired at least three missiles at the main Palestinian police compound in Gaza City on Monday, wounding seven policemen in what the Israeli army of occupation called an attack on a mortar-bomb workshop.
Earlier, an explosion killed six activists of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction near Jenin in the West Bank, Palestinian officials and witnesses said. (Read photo caption below).
The six Fatah men, who Palestinian officials said were on Israel's most-wanted list, were killed by an explosion that tore apart an old bus frame in a junkyard in the village of Fara, about 15 miles from Palestinian-ruled Jenin.
Palestinian officials say Israeli forces have assassinated more than 40 Palestinian activists since the uprising began.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, Palestinian Resistance men sniped at Israeli vehicles and confronted Israeli occupation troops.
Six mortar bombs peppered Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in less than 24 hours. In southern Gaza, Israeli troops and Palestinians showered each other with grenades and bullets.
In Jerusalem, Palestinians set bombs as their 10-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank raged, despite a cease-fire deal that has yet to be consummated and diplomatic efforts to quell the fighting.
Palestinian cabinet minister Hassan Asfour called the helicopter raid on Gaza City ``new proof that (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon's government is always seeking further escalation and wants to continue its aggressive war against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority.''
A Palestinian police officer said the missiles had apparently targeted a weapons storage room in the police compound but hit a bathroom and a separate police building, shattering windows and leaving gaping holes in walls.
BULLETS FLY IN THE WEST BANK
Israeli tanks moved into Palestinian-ruled areas around the West Bank city of Hebron, Al-Khalil and shelled its outer suburbs late on Monday.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, witnesses said occupation army tanks had launched at least six shells at targets in the city of Ramallah.Israeli Minister of War Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Sharon's cabinet on Monday that attacks by Palestinians on Israelis were intensifying and becoming more sophisticated.
Israel has pledged to retaliate swiftly for all Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
After Monday's helicopter gunship strike, the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of fabricating reasons to attack Palestinian targets and invited an international inquiry into the alleged weapons laboratories.
BULLETS, BOMBS AND KNIVES
Palestinian Resistance men wounded three Israeli border police, one of them seriously, in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank on Monday.
Earlier, a bomb went off in a supermarket in Jerusalem, causing no casualties. Police blamed the blast on Palestinian militants, who have waged a campaign against Israel since the uprising erupted last September.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man was seriously wounded when a Palestinian stabbed him in the back in Jerusalem's Old City.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Palestinians gather around the bodies of six Palestinian men prior to their funeral procession through the streets of Al Fara, near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Monday, July 30, 2001. The six men were killed as a car parts store exploded early Monday. Palestinian sources blame Israel, who denies any involvement in the explosion, one of the deadliest single episodes in 10 months of Mideast violence. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)