Israeli warplanes struck two security buildings in the Palestinian territories early on Tuesday, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said, hours after Palestinian militants killed four Israelis.
In the West Bank, an Israeli F-16 missile destroyed the police headquarters in the Al-Tira neighborhood of the Palestinian-ruled city of Ramallah, causing no casualties, according to Palestinian security sources and witnesses.
The Israeli army said that strike was in retaliation for an attack by a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip on Monday night which killed a Jewish settler and two Israeli soldiers.
"Following the murderous attack on (Gaza's) Kissufim road, the army tonight struck the building of the Special Palestinian Police in Ramallah," said an army statement.
Israeli jets on Tuesday also destroyed part of a security complex in Rafah, a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said. They said a nearby clinic and library were lightly damaged.
Palestinian security sources said the building had been evacuated beforehand, but Rafah hospital director Dr. Ali Mussa said two policemen were moderately wounded by flying debris.
In an earlier attack on Monday, a Palestinian militant killed himself and an Israeli policeman when he detonated explosives in his car near a West Bank settlement.
The attacks extended a cycle of violence in which at least 854 Palestinians and 267 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza began in September 2000 after peace talks stalled.
(China Daily February 19, 2002)
