The "big bang" -- see previously articles for context -- is not likely this week for a number of reasons of timing. The Maccabiah Games are underway until next week; the G8 Summit is about to take place in Italy. But by next week, which will also be after this weekend's major Likud Party meeting, the campaign to bury Oslo which may well include the forceable disarming of Palestinian groups, considerable death and imprisonment, and the dismantling of Arafat's "Authority", may well escalate into high gear.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Associated Press, 18 July -- Israeli attack helicopters killed four suspected Palestinian militants Tuesday in a missile assault, obliterating a cinderblock chicken coop in Bethlehem where they were gathered. As Palestinians shouted for revenge, a Mideast cease-fire appeared all but dead.

Israel sent extra soldiers and tanks late Tuesday into the West Bank, close to the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Jenin, Israeli military sources said on condition of anonymity. The beefed up presence followed a Palestinian mortar attack from the West Bank, the first such assault from there since the two sides began fighting in late September.

Israel said two of the four killed in the air attack were senior members of the militant Hamas movement, and the others were lower-ranking activists. The helicopter assault on the structure about a half-mile from the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Christ, capped a bitter day marked by confrontations in the streets and nonstop recriminations among political leaders.

A string of high-profile attacks in recent days has again ratcheted up tensions in the Mideast conflict, now almost 10 months old.

The Israelis said they acted Tuesday to pre-empt a Palestinian attack. Israeli military sources said the Hamas men were planning a massive attack for the closing ceremony of the eight-day Maccabiah Games, often called the Jewish Olympics, which began Monday and brought more than 3,000 Jewish athletes to Israel.

But West Bank Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti denounced the Israeli helicopter strike as a "massacre against Palestinian civilians."

The two Israeli Apache helicopters, tracking a pair of senior figures in the militant movement Hamas, fired four rockets at the shed, which was filled with baby chicks, turning it into a pile of shattered cinderblocks and mangled wire cages.

Two Hamas men wanted by Israel, Taha Aruj and Omar Saadeh, were killed along with Saadeh's cousin Mohammed Saadeh and a fourth man whose name was not immediately available. Ten Palestinians were hurt, including several who suffered from shock.

Israel said the cousin and the fourth man were suspected Hamas militants.

Hundreds of Palestinian men encircled the rubble afterward, while boys dug through the cinderblocks to scoop up the chicks, only a few of whom survived. The hut was part of a small patch of farmland set in a valley and surrounded by homes.

"We promise our people revenge very soon," Hamas said in a statement afterward. "We call upon our people to continue the uprising until we achieve our rights."

Tuesday's attack was in keeping with a much-criticized Israeli policy of targeting suspected militants. Israeli officials have said they turned lists of dozens of militants over to the Palestinians and demanded their arrest. Palestinian security chiefs said they did not receive the lists, and have balked at arresting Palestinians at Israel's behest amid the ongoing conflict.

As a month-old cease-fire unraveled, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke to President Bush by phone and said it was up to Arafat to stop the attacks against Israeli targets.

Arafat warned against militant attacks inside Israel late Monday in a meeting with Palestinian faction leaders, including members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas, a Palestinian security official said on condition of anonymity.

Arafat acted after a suicide bombing Monday, claimed by Islamic Jihad, killed two Israeli soldiers at a train station in the village of Binyamina in Israel's north.

The U.S. State Department called on the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday to go beyond condemnation of a fatal suicide bombing in Israel and arrest those responsible for the attack.

But Islamic Jihad, like Hamas, dismissed Arafat's edict on Tuesday and pledged more attacks.

In other confrontations Tuesday:

- Palestinians fired a mortar shell from Beit Jalla at nearby Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood in a disputed part of southern Jerusalem, but no one was hurt. The Israeli military said it was the first mortar attack from the West Bank, though they are frequent in Gaza. Heavy exchanges of fired followed.

- Scuffles erupted between Palestinians and Israeli police wielding clubs outside Orient House, the main Palestinian offices in east Jerusalem, where about 30 people tried to hold a memorial procession to the grave of Faisal Husseini. Husseini, the top Palestinian official in Jerusalem, died May 31 of a heart attack. Shortly before the procession was to begin, Israeli authorities delivered an order barring any gatherings for a Husseini memorial.

- A 10-year-old Palestinian girl was critically wounded by a stray bullet early Tuesday while sleeping in the West Bank village of Dura.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/7/291.htm