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Israel's Sharon praises killing of Hamas chief, regrets death of civilians
by James Hider
from Agence France-Presse e-mail:

   JERUSALEM, July 23 (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday congratulated his forces on an air strike that killed the military leader of the radical group Hamas, but also expressed regret for the 13 civilians, including eight children, slain in the raid.
   Sharon called the raid on Gaza City that killed a total of 15 people "one of the most successful operations" to have been carried out by Israel's forces, army radio said.
   Sharon told ministers at a cabinet meeting dominated by the targeted killing of Salah Shehade, the head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, that "there cannot be the least concession in the fight against terrorism."
    But he did express his "regret for the innocent victims of this air raid," a statement from his office said.
   "We of course have no interest in striking civilians and are always sorry over civilians who were struck," Sharon told ministers.
   He said Israeli security forces would be on full alert after Hamas and other militant groups threatened to wreak bloody revenge on Israel.
   "We hit the top operational leader of Hamas who had in particular carried out a reorganisation of of Hamas forces in the northern West Bank, as well as operating in the Gaza Strip," Sharon's office quoted the premier as saying.
   "I repeat we cannot reach peace while making concessions to terrorism, we have to fight it and beat it," he said.
   Medics in Gaza said they had recovered the bodies of 11 civilians killed in the strike, while Hamas said Shedade, his bodyguard, his wife and his daughter were blown to pieces when the missile hit their apartment.
   Israeli public radio said Sharon and Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer "personally" gave the green light to the attack, in which a a 1,000 pound (400 kilo) rocket from an F-16 fighter bonber hit the Gaza City apartment complex where Shehade had his home.
   Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said the security cabinet, on which he sits, had not been convened or consulted before the raid.
   "It is possible there was a mistake in the way this operation was carried out, but that can happen in any war situation," he told army radio.
   The raid came as tensions were easing slightly a week after two bloody attacks against Israeli targets in the West Bank and Tel Aviv, which left 12 people plus two suicide bombers dead.
   Hamas was one of three groups to claim repsonsibility for the attack on a Jewish settler bus near the West Bank settlement of Emmanuel which killed nine people, and which was a repeat of an identical attack by Hamas in the same place in December.
   UN Secretary General Kofi Annan deplored the attack, which also injured around 145 people, 15 of them seriously, his spokesman said in New York.
  "Israel has the legal and moral responsibility to take all measures to avoid the loss of innocent life. It clearly failed to do so in using a missile against an apartment building," Fred Eckhard said in a statment late Monday.
   Sharon was criticised in January for the targeted killing of a military leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, shortly after the Palestinian leader had declared a ceasefire, leading to a dramatic drop in violence.
   Three days later an Al Aqsa gunman burst into a party in a hotel in Hadera, north of Tel Aviv and shot dead six Israelis, and the violence which has rocked the region for almost two years flared up again.
   Israeli officials say the army's operations are run according to operational considerations, and call the killings of such high-level leaders as Shehade "self-defence".
   The controversial policy of hunting down and killing senior militants has claimed the lives of around 60 suspects, as well as a number of civilians, including children, Palestinian officials say.