Jerusalem – Israeli forces killed a Palestinian militant and wounded nine other people in a missile strike Wednesday in the southern Gaza Strip, stepping up their response to a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis.
The airstrike in the town of Rafah near the Egyptian border targeted Mahmoud Arkan, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group made up of dissident members of the mainstream Fatah group and other Palestinian factions.
The Israeli army said Arkan had been responsible for a series of attacks on Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, including the firing of anti-tank missiles that killed a soldier in June.
Witnesses and hospital staff in Rafah said that in Wednesday’s strike, an Israeli drone fired a missile at Arkan’s car shortly after nightfall, killing him, wounding three passengers and also injuring six bystanders.
Israeli security chiefs ordered a resumption of targeted killings of Palestinian militants after a suicide bomber killed five people and wounded more than 30 in an attack Monday in the coastal city of Netanya. The Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Palestinian security forces arrested a dozen members of Islamic Jihad on Tuesday and Wednesday in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem, Nablus and Tulkarem, sources in the group said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after the Netanya bombing and pressed him to take action against Islamic Jihad. A statement by Abbas’ office said he had ordered his security forces to arrest and bring to justice those responsible for the attack.
Israel and the United States have demanded that Abbas disarm and break up Palestinian armed militias, but Abbas has avoided a crackdown, fearing it would trigger civil war.
