Helicopter raid and tank shells cap day of Middle East violence

In Syria, Islamic militants who already claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip warned Friday that more attacks were to come. "This operation will be the beginning for more operations against Israeli soldiers. We will not attack Israeli civilians," Ramadan Shalah, the leader of the Islamic Jihad group, told a rally. The mayhem Friday began with Palestinians pouring out of mosques following midday prayers and clashing with Israeli troops. The confrontations soon sent clouds of acrid smoke and tear gas over most every major Palestinian city.

Palestinians have declared Fridays, the Muslim holy days, "Days of Rage" since fighting erupted a month ago. Responding to the call, thousands of rock-throwers _ and a small number of gunmen _ took part in confrontations across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At mass rallies, Muslim radicals echoed Shalah's threats to unleash more suicide bombers on Israel, chanting, "We want a big bomb." U.S. President Bill Clinton, who is trying to revive peace talks and has offered to host Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at separate meetings in Washington, said the outburst of violence was "heartbreaking." "We've got to get the level of violence down before there can be a resumption of negotiations," Clinton told reporters in Washington.

Israel, which has suspended peace negotiations, also insists that restoring calm is a precondition for new talks. Palestinian street activists, and some leaders, see sustained confrontations as the best way to put pressure on Israel. Friday's victims included a 27-year-old Palestinian killed near the West Bank town of Ramallah and a 15-year-old boy shot dead in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya. In all, 152 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers were injured, according to Palestinian doctors and the Israeli military. Thirty days of fighting has left 133 dead, all but a few of them Palestinians. In the West Bank town of Nablus, about 2,000 supporters of the fundamentalist Islamic Hamas movement marched through town. "The only way to respond to Israeli attacks is through military operations," said Salah Darwazeh, a Hamas leader in Nablus, referring to suicide bombings carried out in recent years by the Hamas military wing. Scores of Israelis were killed in bomb attacks in markets, on busy streets and on buses during the mid-1990s. Cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security forces helped bring down the number of bombings in the past few years. However, Israel has been on high alert for new attacks since several dozen Islamic militants were released from Palestinian jails two weeks ago. On Thursday, a Palestinian identified as an Islamic Jihad member rode his bicycle to an Israeli army post in Gaza and detonated explosives strapped to his back, killing himself and injuring a soldier.

The clashes gradually died out as darkness fell _ but not before Arab gunmen fired on the southern Jerusalem area of Gilo, damaging nine apartments and a school building in what has become an almost nightly ritual of shooting in recent days. Israeli soldiers fired machine-guns at Beit Jalla, an adjacent Palestinian village from where the shots came. Helicopter gunships cruised over the village and fired a missile, and tanks stationed in Gilo sent two shells, targeting suspected assailants, police said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Though both sides appeared to drift even further apart with Friday's violence, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat appeared on Israel TV at night alongside Transport Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a senior negotiator on the Israeli side. They did exchange greetings and addressed each other by name _ but did not seem to find common language, deadlocked in the vicious circle of rhetoric. "As long as there's violence in the streets it is mission impossible to sit and have a serious dialogue," Lipkin-Shahak said. "Saeb, if we want to talk we have to talk, if we want to shoot we can shoot at each other. I believe shooting will bring us nowhere." "I want the Israelis not to speak to Palestinians with missiles, with choppers, with gunships, with tanks. I want the Israelis to speak to Palestinians as neighbors," Erekat countered. "You must end this occupation, address the Palestinians, tell them there is hope."

(AP)