JERUSALEM (wnbc) – Two Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car near the West Bank town of Hebron on Monday, killing two Palestinian boys and wounding the militant who was the target of the attack. The strike follows a day of violence that further rocked prospects for Middle East peacemaking as a U.S. envoy appeared to be losing patience in his quest for a cease-fire.
Israeli security sources said the target of the missile attack on a car in the divided city of Hebron was a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group, Mohammed Ayoub Sidr. Later, Israel added that it “deeply regrets” the deaths of innocent children in the attack.
Jihad Badr, chief of Hebron’s Al Ahli hospital, said 3-year-old Burhan Himouni and Shadi Arafi, 13, were killed. Sidr, 26, sustained shrapnel wounds and burns in the attack and was expected to recover, said Gandhi Tamimi, the doctor who treated him in a Hebron hospital.
The younger boy, along with his father and Sidr, who are related by marriage, were riding in the car that took the direct missile hit. The boy’s father was seriously wounded, hospital officials said. Relatives said they had been on their way to a bakery to buy traditional sweets for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
In the past 15 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, Israel has killed several suspected Palestinian militants in targeted rocket attacks on their cars.
Israeli media reported that Israel’s security Cabinet on Sunday approved more military strikes against Palestinian targets, including air attacks, incursions into Palestinian territory and targeted killings of suspected militants.
The Israeli missile strike follows a deadly day Sunday, in which a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated his explosives in the northern Israel town of Haifa, injuring 11 people. The attacker, severely wounded in the attack, was killed by Israeli security forces who feared he was preparing to detonate more explosives. Also on Sunday, Israeli soldiers shot four Palestinian policemen to death in a raid on the West Bank village of Anabta.
