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Israeli helicopter gunship kill Palestinian security agent

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February 14, 2001 

JERUSALEM--(AP) - Israeli helicopter gunships unleashed a fatal pinpoint strike on a car carrying a leader in Yasser Arafat's security detail as the man drove on the outskirts of a refugee camp Tuesday, drawing heavy criticism from the Palestinians but "congratulations" from Israel's caretaker prime minister, Ehud Barak.

The slain Palestinian officer was identified as Massoud Ayyad, 54, a major in Arafat's Force 17 bodyguard unit. Israel says Ayyad was an operative of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah and twice attacked the Jewish settlement of Netzarim with mortars.

The missile attack on the outskirts of the Jebaliya refugee camp killed Ayyad instantly and turned his car into a smoldering, twisted pile of metal. Four bystanders were lightly injured.

Barak sent his "heartfelt congratulations" to the army for killing Ayyad. Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein said Israel was guilty of war crimes. "Israel is a state above the law," he said. Abu Medein disputed that Ayyad had ties to Hezbollah, saying he knew Ayyad personally from a stint in an Israeli jail.

Meanwhile, Israel's rival political camps, led by Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon and his predecessor Barak, moved closer to forming a joint government that would scale back the scope of any peace deal with the Palestinians.

Also Tuesday, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, Bilal Awad, was killed near the Netzarim Junction in central Gaza. Palestinian witnesses said Bilal was shot without warning by Israeli soldiers as he and a group of friends walked along the main road, about 500 meters (yards) from an army outpost. The army denied involvement in the boy's death, saying soldiers did not fire in the area at the time.

The helicopter attack marked the latest escalation in a recent upsurge of violence. A branch of Arafat's Fatah movement has said it would undercut Sharon's promise of bringing security by stepping up attacks on Israelis. Sharon's advisers, in turn, have pledged harsher retaliation.

Sharon's prospects for staying in power until the end of his term in November 2003 were expected to improve if he concludes a coalition deal with Barak's Labor Party. A draft of a coalition agreement was written overnight by negotiators from Labor and Sharon's Likud Party, but Barak has asked to review it with an eye toward making some changes, said Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin.

"If Barak doesn't have a last-minute surprise ... it's a done deal," said Gissin. Labor negotiator Dalia Itsik said such upbeat assessments were misleading, and that many issues remained unsettled.

The two sides have not agreed on a distribution of portfolios, but Sharon has offered Labor a choice of two of three senior ministries - defense, foreign and finance. Sharon wants Barak as his defense minister, and Labor's elder statesman, Shimon Peres, has been proposed as a future foreign minister.

A joint government would seek only to reach a partial agreement with the Palestinians, Gissin said. The Palestinians have ruled out such proposals in the past, saying the time for interim deals had passed and that a final accord must be struck.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Amr reiterated Tuesday that the Palestinians want negotiations to resume at the point where they broke off last month in Taba, Egypt. At the time, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators said they had made significant progress toward a final peace treaty.

Tuesday's deaths brought to 391 the number of people killed in nearly five months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, including 327 Palestinians, 14 Israeli Arabs, 49 other Israelis and a German doctor.

Israel has killed several suspected Palestinian militants and local militia leaders in recent months, but the last death came in late December, leading to speculation that Israel had halted the practice in response to international criticism.

However, Barak said Tuesday that Israel would continue targeting Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis. "It is a clear message to anyone who is planning to attack Israelis that they will not be able to do so with impunity, and that the armed forces will find them and settle accounts with them," Barak said in a statement.

His deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, said Ayyad made a living smuggling arms and drugs, and was a Hezbollah operative. Sneh said Ayyad's ties to Hezbollah were unusual. The Islamic fundamentalist group has little direct influence in the Palestinian areas.

Ayyad's son, Nasser, allegedly a member of his father's cell, was arrested two weeks ago. Sneh said Israel decided to kill the elder Ayyad only after it exhausted efforts to arrest him. "If we didn't touch him, and tonight another mortar shell killed Israelis, how could I look their relatives in the eyes?" Sneh said.