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Four Palestinians killed in West Bank
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Four Palestinians were killed and two Israelis wounded Wednesday in the West Bank, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. Two wanted Palestinian militants were killed in operations in Qalqilya and Hebron, Israeli military sources said. According to the sources, Israel Defense Forces went to Hebron to arrest a member of the Tanzim, Israel's term for the militant wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, and to Qalqilya to arrest a wanted member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The militants were shot and killed when they tried to escape, the sources said. Israeli security forces also arrested 25 wanted Palestinians overnight in the West Bank, the sources said. Palestinian security sources said the slain Palestinian in Qalqilya was Ahmad Atiyeh, a member of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. According to these sources, the Israeli army entered Qalqilya at dawn and set up an ambush for Atiyeh in a house. Palestinian police said the slain Palestinian in Hebron was Abdul Hadi al-Natsheh. Palestinian police said al-Natsheh was a member of the special units in the Palestinian police force. The police said the Israeli army entered the city before sunrise and surrounded a house where al-Natsheh was located. When al-Natsheh tried to escape, the Israelis killed him, put his body in a vehicle and drove away, police said. The army later took al-Natsheh's brothers to identify the body, according to the police. Two other Palestinians were killed and two Israeli civilians were wounded in an exchange of gunfire in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. No further details were available. Strike accounts disputedWednesday's action came against the backdrop of increased military activity in the region, including five airstrikes Monday in Gaza that Israeli officials said were aimed at thwarting terrorist attacks and destroying weapons factories. Palestinian security and medical sources said at least 12 people were killed and scores injured. Palestinian sources said that in one attack alone -- a missile strike on a car in the Nusseirat refuge camp -- nine people were killed and nearly 100 were wounded. Palestinian security sources said that one missile hit the car, and another hit the street after a crowd had gathered. Among the dead, the sources said, was a doctor who was tending the wounded from the first missile strike. Israeli officials said the airstrike was aimed at terrorists fleeing after a thwarted attempt to infiltrate Israel. They publicly disputed the Palestinian sources' version of what had occurred at Nusseirat and on Tuesday released cockpit video of the incident to buttress their argument. "An Israeli helicopter identified a number of terrorists attempting to cross a fence dividing Gaza from Israel," Israeli spokesman Ido Aharoni said. "When spotted, the terrorists fled on foot and in a car." An unmanned aerial vehicle then was used to track the car and launch a missile at it, Aharoni said. "There were absolutely no civilians in the area or around the area of the car" when it was hit, Aharoni said. After the car rolled to a stop, Aharoni said, it was hit with a second missile. "Two and a half minutes after the attack people began assembling around the car and the surrounding area," he said. The video released by the IDF shows a missile hitting a vehicle traveling along a sparsely trafficked urban avenue, and a second missile hitting the spot where the vehicle came to a rest about 30 seconds after it stopped. The two strikes portrayed in the video span 62 seconds. Bush administration criticizes U.N. resolutionThe Bush administration said Wednesday that it is disappointed with a U.N. General Assembly resolution asking Israel to stop building a security barrier, saying it was not balanced to reflect the danger Israel faces against terrorist attacks by Palestinian militants. The General Assembly on Tuesday approved the nonbinding resolution demanding that Israel halt construction of the barrier that enters into the West Bank. The vote was 144 in favor and four opposed. There were 12 abstentions. The United States voted against the resolution. (Full story) "It didn't include any mention of the terrorist groups that are responsible for the ongoing violence in the region and for trying to destroy the efforts of the many well-intentioned parties to bring peace to the region," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said Wednesday. "And as long as we're dealing with one-sided, polemical resolutions that put all of the blame on one side and do not recognize the responsibility of others, particularly these terrorist groups, then it's not a fair, it's not a balanced resolution that we can support." The United States vetoed a similar resolution last week in the U.N. Security Council. CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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