Israel Vows To Target Hamas As Victims Of Beersheva Bombings Buried

by Jacques Pinto
BEERSHEVA, Israel, Sept 1 (AFP) - Israel vowed a global pursuit of Hamas leaders and to forge ahead with its West Bank barrier Wednesday as funerals were held for victims of the deadliest Palestinian attack in nearly a year.
As soldiers demolished the family home of one of the two Hamas bombers, a senior government source said its battle against the Islamist group would not be constrained by geographical borders.
The source said Tuesday's bombings, which left 16 people and the two bombers dead in the southern desert city of Beersheva, bore the fingerprints of Hamas' Damascus-based leaders.
"There will be a continuation of our targeted operations against the heads of Hamas," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"There will be no geographical barrier in pursuing the terrorists and their leadership. Any place they are, there will be no immunity.
"It's Damascus that's calling the shots; the orders are coming from there."
The attacks in Beersheva were the deadliest since a suicide bombing in the port city of Haifa last October, which left 21 people and the female bomber dead.
Israel responded to that attack, carried out by the smaller Islamic Jihad organisation, with an air strike on an alleged Palestinian militant training camp deep inside Syria.
Hamas has said the Beersheva bombings, carried out by two members from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, were in response to the assassination of two of its leaders earlier this year.
Since the death of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdelaziz Rantissi, both killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza, Damascus-based politburo chief Khaled Meshaal has emerged as the undisputed leader.
Meshaal was the target of an failed assassination bid by Israeli agents in Jordan in 1997.
Addressing MPs, army chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon, pointed the finger of blame at the Palestinian Authority and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah as well as Damascus, vowing to "take care of those who support terror".
"That is those in the Palestinian Authority, the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon, in the terrorist command in Damascus, which operate with Syrian approval, and those who provide funding and weapons to terrorist organizations."
Officials were quick to argue that the Beersheva attacks were launched from an area of the West Bank is not currently cut off from Israel by the controversial barrier.
Work on the barrier, which is eventually expected to stretch across the territory, has so far been concentrated in the north of the West Bank.
"If there was a fence in that area it would have been much harder to get into Beersheva from Hebron," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief spokesman, Ranaan Gissin, told AFP.
The director of the seamline area administration, the body responsible for administering the border between Israel and the West Bank, said construction on the southern section between the large Gush Etzion settlement bloc and Levahim would start Thursday after a decision made several months ago.
The Israeli government has come in for a welter of criticism over the barrier, with the International Court of Justice ruling in July that parts built within the West Bank are illegal and should be torn down.
But Sharon has vowed to ignore the ICJ's non-binding verdict and carry on with construction.
The Palestinians have argued that the route of the barrier, which often cuts deep inside the West Bank, shows its real intent is less to do with security but rather to pre-empt the boundaries of their promised future state.
A source close to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Israel had been looking for excuses to continue construction.
"It will just give them more reason to continue the wall. It will make their mission much easier in this regard," he told AFP.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was among those attending the funeral Wednesday for the youngest victim, three-year-old Aviel Atash.
"Whatever pain we suffer, we will never give in to fear and panic," he told mourners.
As the body was laid in the ground, Olmert picked up a spade and joined a group of four rabbis who were filling in the tiny grave.
Aviel's mother, Rachel, is still seriously ill in hospital after the blast and has yet to be told of her son's death.
Police have been placed on high alert in the wake of the bombings, with hundreds of extra police and border guards deployed nationwide.
Security forces also sealed off Hebron where the family home of one of the bombers was blown up. Plans to demolish the home of the second bomber were shelved for fear it could also wreck other families' homes.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem district court convicted a Jewish extremist for belonging to a terror organisation that carried out a series of deadly attacks against Arabs which left eight people dead.
According to the charge sheet, Shahar Dvir Zeliger belonged to a Jewish "terrorist organisation whose aim was to carry out attacks against Arabs", including shootings and placing explosive devices, mainly in schools.