BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip (Islamweb & News Agencies) - In line with its declared internationally criticized policy of using improportianate military response to Palestinian Resistance to occupation, Israel fired missiles at Palestinian security offices in the Gaza Strip Wednesday in yet another brutal act that coincided with preparations for possible cease-fire talks. (Read map caption below)In Moscow, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had dispatched his special Middle East envoy to the region.
``Following a request from both (the Israeli and Palestinian) sides, President Putin ordered his special envoy Andrei Vdovin to fly urgently to the region to continue contacts,'' Ivanov told a news conference.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was on a three-day visit to Russia and holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin Tuesday in a deliberately low-key trip to Moscow.
Putin said afterwards Russia could ``make a substantial contribution to resolving the situation in the region.''
Hours before the missile attack on a headquarters of the Force 17 security organization, a senior Palestinian official said President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres may meet in the region next week to try to end nearly a year of fighting.
Palestinian security officials said at least one Force 17 member was wounded when two surface-to-surface missiles struck its Beit Hanoun headquarters in the northern Gaza Strip.
``I saw the two missiles hitting our building,'' a member of Force 17 said outside the almost destroyed one-story building. ''They came from the eastern direction, Israeli territory.''
The Israeli occupation army typically claimed it launched the strike in response to Palestinian mortar attacks, which caused no casualties, in the Gaza area in the past 24 hours.
EU TRIES TO BROKER TRUCE TALKS
A heightened security alert in Jerusalem after a Palestinian Resistance bomber blew himself up in the Holy City Tuesday, wounding 15 people, had already cast a pall over the latest peace bid, led by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Arafat's adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said Arafat believed EU-brokered cease-fire talks needed to be properly prepared to avoid failure. An earlier plan had been to hold them on the sidelines of an economic conference in Italy at the weekend.
``President Arafat told Solana he will contact him Sunday to set the time and venue of a meeting with Peres,'' Abu Rdainah told Reuters.
The two leaders have met several times since the current Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in September last year after peace talks stalled, but have failed to curb the bloodshed.
HEIGHTENED SECURITY IN JERUSALEM
An Israeli police spokesman said occupation troops would reinforce security in Jerusalem by guarding open-air markets, shopping malls and bus stations targeted by bombers in the past.
Jerusalem has been a focal point for the uprising which flared after then-opposition leader Sharon visited a shrine holy to Jews and Muslims last September.
Wednesday, Israel's Shin Bet internal security service said it had arrested six Palestinians from Arab East Jerusalem last month on suspicion of planning bomb attacks in the city.
Their potential targets included the U.S. consulate in Arab East Jerusalem, a popular movie theater and a fashionable restaurant, Sharon's office said in a statement.
Tuesday's Resistance bomber, disguised as a bearded ultra-Orthodox Jew, blew himself up after police chased him along a Jerusalem street a block from a pizza parlor where a bomber killed 15 Israelis, on August 9.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which Israeli occupation authorities believed was carried out by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance group Hamas.
Resistance Islamic groups have mounted a wave of Resistance bombings against Israeli targets since the uprising flared. At least 554 Palestinians and 157 Israelis have been killed.
MAP CAPTION:
Continued Israeli brutality and occupation have trigerred a spate of Resistance bomb attacks increasing tensions between the Palestinian National Authority and the Israeli establishment, and greatly reducing chances of resuming peace talks between the two groups. (Islamweb & Agencies)