GAZA (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Israeli helicopter gunships struck a Palestinian government compound in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, driving home Israel's demand that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat do more to rein in militants.
On Friday, Israeli warplanes bombed the Palestinian Authority's main police headquarters, wounding at least 18.
The air strike in Gaza City, hub of the Palestinian-ruled coastal strip, reduced two four-story buildings to rubble, officials and witnesses said. Two huge explosions sent a large plume of smoke billowing over the area. (Read map caption)
The missile attack in the early hours devastated the Rafah offices of the Palestinian intelligence services and Force 17, Arafat's elite bodyguard unit, hours after a new round of U.S.-brokered security talks aimed at halting the spiraling violence.
The were no immediate reports of casualties. A Palestinian official said the compound had been evacuated in anticipation of the attack, the latest Israeli retaliation after Palestinian Resistance bombers killed 25 people in Israel last weekend.
During the three-hour security talks near Tel Aviv, brokered by U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, Israeli security chiefs rejected a Palestinian request that they ease the pressure in the occupied territories.
Israel says it will keep up its strikes until Arafat acts against militants threatening the Jewish state's security in a 14-month-old Palestinian uprising against occupation.
``It was a difficult meeting,'' an Israeli official told Reuters. ``We were firm in raising our contention that the Palestinians are arresting only second- and third-rate terrorists, rather than going for the main culprits.''
Palestinian security chiefs briefed Arafat on the meeting afterward but made no comment on the outcome. Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior aide to Arafat, said only that another meeting had been scheduled for Sunday.
MAP CAPTION:
Israeli warplanes bombed the Palestinian Authority's main police headquarters on December 7, 2001, wounding at least 18 people in fresh retaliation for deadly Resistance attacks in the Jewish state. (Reuters Graphic)