JERUSALEM – Israeli reprisal raids killed at least 17 Palestinians yesterday, including the wife and three children of a Hamas commander, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared, “We are in a war.”
The attacks included missiles fired from helicopters at Yasser Arafat’s headquarters compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah and an F-16 raid that flattened a security nerve center in Bethlehem.
Arafat was unhurt. But in other bloodshed, at least six Palestinian civilians were killed, including a doctor with the Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross.
Palestinian sources said Dr. Khalil Suleiman and three medics were injured when the Israeli army opened fire on their ambulance near the scene of a gun battle in Jenin.
The gunfire ignited an oxygen canister, which exploded, the ambulance’s driver said.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers fired because the ambulance sped toward them and its driver appeared to be trying to run them down.
But one of the wounded medics insisted the ambulance was moving at a “snail’s pace.”
Israeli officials said they were also investigating what they called an accidental attack on a civilian car near Al Bireh in the West Bank.
They said several tank shells were fired at another car carrying fleeing Palestinian gunmen when one shell destroyed a car carrying the wife of Hamas commander Hussein Abu Kwik and their three children.
A military spokesman said Israel apologized for hitting the car. All six people inside were killed.
But Abu Kwik vowed, “I swear to God they will pay a very high price for this crime.
“We will continue our resistance until it’s the end of the last soldier on our lands.”
Sharon told Knesset members he was seeking to inflict “maximum casualties” against the terrorists responsible for recent attacks, including last Saturday’s suicide bombing outside a Jerusalem synagogue.
The weekend’s death toll grew to 22 yesterday when an uncle of a boy being bar mitzvahed died of his injuries.
“We are in a war over our home, and the war is terrible,” Sharon told the lawmakers.
“I am sure that finally, we will be victorious and peace will come to this house.”
But Jibril Rajoub, Palestinian security chief in the West Bank and a potential successor to Arafat, said yesterday’s raids only ensure another round of escalation on both sides.
“These are massacres, and it is these crimes that make suicide bombers out of our people and bring about retaliation and more victims and bloodshed,” he told Reuters.
Meanwhile, celebrated Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim said he would perform a concert in the West Bank as well as one in Jerusalem. “Maybe music will bring the two peoples together,” he said.