MIDDLE EAST: An Israeli helicopter fired missiles at a car carrying two members of the militant Hamas group in Gaza City yesterday, wounding one of them and about 10 bystanders.
The Hamas members included Jamal al-Jarah, a senior militant in the group's armed wing in the northern Gaza Strip, who was apparently the target of the attack. It was unclear whether he was among the wounded.
It was Israel's second missile strike in Gaza in less than a week.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government yesterday released figures showing that the population of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has grown by 16 per cent in the nearly three years that Mr Ariel Sharon has been prime minister of Israel.
The overall settler population has jumped to 236,381, from 203,067 at the end of 2000, and the population growth has been at its highest at some settlements in particularly isolated areas of the territories.
The 16 per cent growth in three years far outstrips average population growth throughout Israel, which is currently below 2 per cent per annum. Against the background of such dramatic settlement expansion, Palestinian officials are expressing scepticism about Mr Sharon's stated intention to dismantle dozens of illegal settlement outposts peppered throughout the West Bank.
At one of the outposts initially marked for an immediate evacuation, Migron, not far from Ramallah, residents spoke yesterday of a sense that they were "off the hook" for now. They believe Mr Sharon has been deterred from sending in troops to evacuate the 40 families by hundreds of supporters who have visited the site in the past few days to display solidarity. However, the army has posted formal eviction orders at four other such outposts.