Israeli forces fail to kill Jihad leader after raids on Gaza

A field commander of Islamic Jihad narrowly escaped assassination yesterday when Israeli helicopters fired three missiles into a car on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Palestinian sources reported that the wanted man and two others travelling with him noticed the helicopters and managed to get out seconds before they struck. Their vehicle was reduced to a blackened skeleton.

Three passers-by, including a 13-year-old boy, were hurt. Islamic Jihad, the most radical of the Palestinian militias, did not identify the intended victim. Western governments and human rights watchdogs have condemned Israel's policy of murdering its opponents.

Earlier, 30 Israeli tanks and armoured personnel carriers, backed by two Apache helicopters, raided the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp. Engineers then demolished the homes of three men blamed for planning or executing bombings and shootings that killed 23 Israeli soldiers and civilians between 1996 and July 2002.

After the troops withdrew yesterday, Palestinians said they discovered the body of a man aged 80 under the rubble of one of the houses. He was identified as Ashur Dhib, the father of one of the alleged killers.

Family members said the soldiers called on them to leave the six-storey building. They did so, but Mr Dhib, who was deaf and blind, was left behind in the confusion. An army spokesman said the troops searched the building before destroying it.

"We do everything to make sure that the houses are empty of people, and we take several steps to do it," an Israeli military source said.

It had been the home of Hisham Dhib, an Islamic Jihad operative accused of planning an attack on a Tel Aviv shopping street six years ago in which 20 people were killed and 70 wounded. Troops yesterday found a mortar bomb in the house. They also demolished the homes of Ahmad Hamoud, a Hamas gunman who allegedly directed an ambush that killed three Israeli soldiers this June, and Jihad al-Masri, a Hamas fighter accused of shooting an Israeli civilian a year ago.

Palestinian sources said a man was killed in exchanges of fire during the three-hour incursion and 11 were wounded. They claimed the dead man was a bystander, watching the fight from his balcony, but Israel said he was shooting at soldiers. Tank and machine- gun fire knocked out Beit Lahiya's power supply.

The Jewish quarter of west Jerusalem was on alert yesterday after the security service received intelligence of a planned large-scale bombing.

* The parents of a 12-year-old Palestinian whose death became a symbol of an uprising for statehood are celebrating the birth of a boy, whom they named after their dead son.

Mohammed al-Durra was born on Friday in the Gaza Strip. His namesake was killed in a battle between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen in Gaza in September 2000. Television footage of the boy's last moments cowering behind his father shocked the world. Palestinians said Israeli troops killed the boy. A preliminary Israeli inquiry supported this but military officials now blame Palestinian gunfire.