JERUSALEM (AP) – An Israeli helicopter attack in Gaza that killed two Palestinian militants was aimed at a man believed to have jubilantly displayed the severed head of an Israeli soldier two months ago, security officials said Friday.
Hazem Rahim and another militant were killed late Thursday, partly fulfilling a pledge by the Israeli army chief to “show no forgiveness” to the men who gloated over the corpses of six Israeli soldiers last May and held their body parts for ransom.
The Israeli helicopter-launched missile pulverized a white Subaru as it drove through the crowded Zeitoun district of Gaza City.
The Islamic Jihad identified the victims as its members, and the Israeli army said Rahim was involved in the deadly May roadside bombing.
The May 11 attack shattered an armored personnel carrier transporting explosives, scattering the remains of the six soldiers over a 300-yard radius. Militants paraded through the streets with body parts and video footage flashed on Arab television showed two masked Islamic Jihad activists taking responsibility and displaying the head of an Israeli soldier on a table in front of them.
Israeli security officials say they believe Rahim was one of the men in the video. He was known to be involved in the negotiations for the return of the remains, initially demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
Rahim’s name was on an Israeli list of Palestinians to be hunted down for the desecration of the soldiers’ bodies, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
On the diplomatic front, Israel’s relations with the European Union plunged further with a sharp warning from the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javiar Solana, that the Europeans cannot be ignored in Mideast diplomacy.
Solana’s two-day visit to Israel turned frosty after the European Union voted as a bloc for a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly demanding that Israel dismantle the barrier it is building in the West Bank and compensate Palestinians for confiscated land.
In a meeting with Solana on Thursday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the European vote would make it difficult for Israel to involve the EU in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
But Solana fired back that the Europeans will remain involved.
Europe “is a very important international power and is going to play a role whether you like it or not,” he said, speaking to Israeli media Friday.
Opposition leader Shimon Peres told Solana the European involvement with the Palestinians should be conditional on the Palestinian Authority restructuring their security forces and cracking down on terrorism.
“I think that a country that has not experienced terror cannot judge a country that did experience it,” Peres told reporters before Solana’s departure Friday.
Peres told Solana that tens of thousands of Palestinian policemen receive their salaries with money donated from the EU, and that the police force is doing nothing to prevent terrorism, said Peres’ spokesman Yoram Dori.
The EU supported the General Assembly’s nonbinding resolution, which passed 150-6 with 10 abstentions after last-minute additions reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defense and called on the Palestinians to arrest would-be attackers. It also demanded Israel stop attacking Palestinian civilians.
Israel has said it will ignore both the resolution and the ruling by the International Court of Justice ordering it to remove the barrier.
Israel argues the barrier is necessary to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers, while the Palestinians say the barrier imposes intolerable hardships and is an attempt to seize land.
AP-ES-07-23-04 1737EDT
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