5 Palestinians killed in Israeli Gaza Strip raid

JERUSALEM - Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinians on Tuesday as the Israeli army sent tanks into the northern Gaza Strip to try to halt repeated Palestinian rocket fire coming from the territory, the Israeli military and Palestinian hospital officials said.

About 30 Palestinians and five Israeli soldiers were wounded in the daylong clashes that involved hundreds of Palestinians in the dunes around the Palestinian town of Beit Lahia, the two sides said.

Palestinian militants had begun stepping up rocket attacks on Sunday, a day after an Israeli helicopter strike killed Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the Gaza leader of Hamas. Less than a month earlier, Israel killed his predecessor, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in the same fashion.

Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, said Tuesday that the "targeted killings" would continue.

"We got rid of murderer No. 1 and murderer No. 2 and the list is not short," he said in a speech.

The tanks and an armored bulldozer entered the Beit Lahia area on Tuesday morning, and Palestinian youths pelted the vehicles with stones and firebombs.

Palestinians fired automatic rifles and tossed grenades, the military said, adding that soldiers shot at armed Palestinians.

Three of the five killed were teenagers, and they included armed fighters, according to Palestinian witnesses and Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Motasem Nasser, 17, was shot and killed after he climbed on an Israeli armored vehicle, the Palestinians said.

Hamas said it would soon begin a new round of attacks on Israel.

Palestinians have been barred from entering Israel since Yassin was killed March 22. Palestinian attackers have not been able to reach Israeli cities in more than a month, though the Israeli security forces say they have thwarted numerous attempts.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Colin Powell assured anxious Europeans Tuesday that the Bush administration is determined to launch a Palestinian state and that any decision on Israeli population centers remaining on the West Bank would require Palestinian approval.

Still, Powell, lined up with President Bush's assurances last week to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that "the realities that exist in the area" should be taken into account in a peace accord.

Powell met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher, who has said his government wants assurances the Bush administration is committed to a land-for-peace deal and establishment of a Palestinian state next year.

AMMAN, Jordan - Authorities stormed a basement in a poor neighborhood of the Jordanian capital Tuesday, killing four men believed to have ties to an al-Qaida-linked cell that plotted simultaneous bombing and chemical attacks against the U.S. Embassy and other targets.

The bomb plot was disclosed this week and was said to have been foiled after the arrests of several suspects in two raids in late March and early April. Had the chemical bomb exploded, it could have killed at least 20,000 people and wrecked buildings within a half-mile radius, government officials say.

JERUSALEM - French insurance giant AXA has agreed to compensate three Jews who owned property in Iraq and fled in the early 1950s, a potential precedent for reparations payments to about 850,000 Jews who left Arab countries, officials said Tuesday.

AXA will pay compensation to the Jews who were forced out of Iraq after the establishment of Israel in 1948, said Justice Ministry spokesman Yaakov Galanti.

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