Israel Assassination Attempt Kills Mother & Child

Images: Israel Assassination Attempt Kills Mother & Child

A Palestinian Woman and her Child Killed and 27 Wounded in a Failed Israeli Assassination Attempt on Al Rantisi in Gaza

GAZA, Palestine, June 10, 2003 (IPC)-- Three Palestinian civilians killed, including a woman and her daughter, and twenty seven others injured when two Israeli Apache helicopters fired nearly six rockets on a jeep belonging to senior most Hamas leader, Dr. Abdel Aziz Al Rantisi, Palestinian medical sources said.

Hospital officials at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City confirmed that Dr. Al Rantisi escaped the assassination attempt with light wounds, along with his son, Ahmad, and his guards. They added that their conditions described as stable.

Eyewitnesses told IPC correspondent that at 11:10, two Israeli helicopters fired about six rockets at a jeep, in which Al Rantisi was in, near Al Shifa hospital. The rockets hit the area around the car, killing an old woman and her 3-year old girl, while wounding dozens, all were bystanders in the crowded area.

An old woman, Khadra Abu Hamada, 34, and her 3-year-girl, and Mostafa Saleh, 23, were killed while 27 other wounded in the attack, Dr Abu Hasanin of Shifa hospital in Gaza said.

The wounded conditions were described between moderate and critical, and were mostly of women and children, hit with large iron shrapnel of the rockets.

"The area in which the rockets fell is home to several medical and civil institution, and is very crowded at this time of day," one of the citizens said, commenting on the large number of casualties.

Commenting on this attempt, Dr. Nabil Abu Rdeina, President Yasser Arafat's media advisor, described the attempt on Al Rantisi's life as an Israeli effort to destroy the "Roadmap" peace plan.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Minister of Information, Nabil Amr, strongly condemned the attempted assassination, and accused Israel of trying to create a crack between the Palestinian factions and the PNA, to prevent the efforts exerted to calm the situations.

Worthy saying that Dr. Al Rantisi was leaving a meeting of the Higher Follow up Committee of the National and Islamic Factions, in which he was discussing Hamas's possibility to go back to the dialogue with the Palestinian Authority.

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