The Palestinian Authority has arrested several people suspected of helping Israel carry out Tuesday’s helicopter gunship attack, which killed eight Palestinians, said Israel Radio on Thursday.
Israeli missiles killed five Hamas activists, two passing children and a journalist.
In a related development, two Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel were killed in separate attacks in the West Bank Wednesday, Palestinian sources said.
In the first attack, a 51-year-old Palestinian was killed in front of his house in the West Bank town of Ramallah, the sources told AFP.
Later, unidentified masked and armed assailants attacked a 30-year-old Palestinian outside his home in the West Bank village of El Khader, near Bethlehem. He later died of his wounds.
Neither victim was further identified. It was not clear whether the two were killed for involvement in the Tuesday’s raid.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz claimed that the Nablus strike would have been “aborted” if the army “knew children were in the vicinity of attack,” said the radio, cited by Haaretz newspaper.
Israel claimed responsibility for the Nablus attack in which the two boys were killed.
Bilal and Ashraf Khalil, aged 8 and 10, were killed and their mother was seriously injured.
In another development, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres took issue Wednesday with people who use the term "liquidation" to describe the targeted killing of Palestinian militants, saying Israel is "not a Mafia state," said AFP.
"I object to the use of the weak and unfounded term 'liquidation' to describe the interception operations we are carrying out against suicide attackers; we are not a Mafia state that engages in such practices," Peres told Israeli public radio, cited by AFP.
"We are the only state in the world which has to face suicide bombers, who cannot be stopped by police or by soldiers because they are ready to die, so it is necessary to intercept them before they leave to carry out an attack on Israeli territory," Peres added.
Peres was responding to vigorous international criticism of Israel's Nablus massacre on Tuesday – Albawaba.com
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