GAZA (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Israeli helicopter gunships destroyed a Palestinian security headquarters in the Gaza Strip in a missile strike on Tuesday, shortly before the start of a European Union mission intended to bolster U.S. peace efforts.
In Israel's latest response to a wave of Palestinian Resistance bombings, at least five missiles reduced to rubble a building used by Force 17, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's elite bodyguard unit, in the town of Beit Hanoun north of Gaza City.
No one was hurt in the attack, in which Palestinian officials said two surface-to-surface missiles were also fired soon after 2:00 a.m.
The building, which was empty at the time, was wrecked. Tiles, pieces of concrete, metal, furniture and bedding were strewn across the ground by the force of the blast.
Hours earlier, Israeli helicopters killed two Palestinian children in the West Bank city of Hebron in a strike on the car of an Islamic Resistance leader who Israel said was planning more bombing attacks.
Israel has blamed Arafat for the Resistance bombings that have killed at least 29 people in Israel since U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni began a mission two weeks ago to end 14 months of bloodshed in which at least 758 Palestinians and 223 Israelis have died.
Arafat denies any blame for the attacks, but is under intense U.S. and Israeli pressure to do more to rein in Resistance groups who carried out the bombings to avenge Israel's killing of one of their leaders in a missile strike.
``The Israelis are not interested in making Zinni's mission succeed or making any efforts by international parties succeed,'' Major-General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh, the Palestinian public security chief, told Reuters after the attack in Gaza.