Israel fires back after gunman kills four, wounds 23

Israeli police stand near the scene of a suicide bombing Thursday in the Jewish settlement of Ariel. Nine people were injured when the bomber blew himself up.

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel launched new assaults Friday in Gaza, retaliating for a firefight Thursday in which an armed Palestinian killed four Israelis and wounded 23 at a Gaza settlement.

In one action in Gaza early Friday, Israeli forces killed Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mefraj, a Palestinian security commander, Palestinian sources said. He was said to be the highest-ranking Palestinian officer killed by Israeli forces since the intifada began 17 months ago.

In another incident, a United Nations guard was killed Thursday by Israeli troops as he drove to a West Bank refugee camp, prompting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appeal to the Israeli government to investigate the killing of a U.N. staff member by Israeli soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces said it had no immediate comment on the report.

The Israeli army early Friday attacked several targets in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Sudania, according to Palestinian security sources. At least two Palestinians were killed, one of them an ambulance driver and the other an intelligence officer, Palestinian sources said.

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Several people were wounded and more may have been killed, but rescue workers were unable to reach them because of fire from Israeli helicopters and navy ships, the Palestinian sources said.

On Thursday, a Palestinian gunman attacked Jewish settlers in the Atzmona settlement in Gaza, killing four and wounding 23 before he was killed in the firefight.

Palestinian sources identified the gunman as Muhammad Fathi Arafat, 19, a member of the military wing of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist group that has been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.

Palestinian security sources in Gaza said Israeli Apache helicopters Thursday evening attacked police buildings in Gaza -- one in Beit Hanoun, struck with two missiles, and the second in Jabalya refugee camp, hit with three missiles. Five Palestinians were injured, sources said. The Israeli army confirmed it had attacked police facilities in Jabalya and Beit Hanoun.

In Bethlehem, Israeli F-16 jet fighters fired missiles at a police headquarters, and Palestinian sources said Israeli tanks entered the West Bank town from different locations.

Earlier, authorities in the Jewish state said a Palestinian suicide bombing apparently was thwarted in Jerusalem but that another suicide bombing injured nine at the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. The bomber was killed.

U.N. guard shot in ambulance

On the ground, Israeli forces continued searching for suspected terrorists and weapons in houses in the West Bank town of Tulkarem and surrounding refugee camps, the Israeli Defense Forces said. Five Palestinians died during the search, according to the Red Crescent.

The U.N. guard was the first killing of a U.N. staff member in the occupied territories since the intifada resumed in 2000, the U.N. said.

Kamal Hamdan was working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA. Israeli soldiers killed him while he was riding in a U.N. ambulance that had just transported a critically wounded resident from a camp in the northern West Bank, the relief agency said.

A statement from UNRWA said Israeli soldiers fired several bullets at the "clearly marked, well-lit, U.N. ambulance that also had a U.N. flag mounted on it." (Full story)

Doctors in a Gaza hospital tend to a man injured in Thursday night's Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli special army forces killed an Islamic Jihad activist Thursday after the forces returned fire in the West Bank village of Cirris, south of Jenin, the IDF said. A M-16 rifle with a scope was found on the man's body, the IDF said.

Sharon: Conflict 'forced upon Israel'

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres defended Israel's actions, contending the nation is acting in self-defense.

"The war in which Israel finds itself was forced upon Israel by the Palestinian Authority and its head after the Camp David Summit in 2000," Sharon's office said in a statement early Thursday. "Israel has never declared war on the Palestinians."

On Israeli Radio Thursday morning, Peres said he spoke to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the telephone late Wednesday, but Peres did not reveal what was said in the conversation. Peres also said Israel has no intention to harm the Palestinian people.

Defense Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer was to meet with world diplomats to explain Israel's actions, according to the Tel Aviv daily newspaper Ha'aretz.

In Washington, President Bush said Thursday he would send his special Mideast envoy Anthony Zinni back to the Middle East next week in an effort to convince Israelis and Palestinians to pull back from escalating violence and accept existing U.S. plans for a cease-fire. (Full story)

His announcement followed by two days an appeal from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to increase the level of U.S. diplomatic involvement in the crisis, and just three days before Vice President Dick Cheney is to head to the region for conversations certain to have a heavy focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well.