Israel strikes at Palestinians using missiles, travel bans

JERUSALEM -- Israel struck back at the Palestinians on Monday following a day of deadly attacks, firing missiles at a suspected weapons factory in the Gaza Strip and announcing a ban on Palestinian travel in the northern West Bank.

At the same time, however, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met with the Palestinian interior minister, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, to discuss plans for a cease-fire to allow Israeli troops to leave Palestinian areas, Palestinian officials and Israel Army Radio said.

In the missile strike late Monday, four people were lightly injured when Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at a spare car parts factory in Gaza City's Zeitouni neighborhood, known as a hub for the militant group Hamas, witnesses said.

Israel Army Radio said the building targeted was a suspected weapons factory.

Three buildings, located near a mosque, were damaged, and one of the missiles didn't explode, witnesses said. Firefighters doused a small blaze that ignited at the scene.

Salim Bahtiti, 25, son of the factory owner, angrily denied the shop was used to make weapons.

"I challenge all the experts of this world to come and to see if our metal work shop can be used to produce any kind of weapons," he said, pointing to the charred remains of his spare car parts machines.

The strike was the first on Gaza since an Israeli F-16 dropped a one-ton bomb on a Gaza City block July 22, killing the military leader of the militant group Hamas, Salah Shehadeh, and 14 other people, nine of them children.

The bombing prompted international condemnation -- as well as a rare rebuke from the White House -- because of the high civilian toll. It also prompted Hamas to vow revenge.

Responsibility claimed

Hamas has since claimed responsibility for two deadly attacks: a bombing at Jerusalem's Hebrew University that killed seven people, five of them Americans, and a suicide bombing on a bus Sunday that killed nine passengers.

In all, Sunday's toll reached 13, with shooting attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Three assailants were also killed.

Following the attacks, Israel on Monday said it would bar Palestinian travel in much of the northern West Bank and it sent tanks to seal off the Rafah refugee camp and a nearby one in southern Gaza.

Under the new travel ban, Palestinians will not be able to drive in the northern half of the West Bank, between the towns of Nablus, Jenin, Qalqiliya, Tulkarem and Ramallah, the army said. Some movement will be permitted in the southern West Bank, including the towns of Hebron, Bethlehem and Jericho.

"We are in a situation of total closure in the area of Samaria," Ben-Eliezer said, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank. "Nobody enters and nobody leaves. There is no movement between the towns and villages."

The military said Monday's announcement of a "total ban" on Palestinian traffic meant that existing blockades would be strictly enforced, with more checkpoints and more troops stationed at them. Exemptions would be made in humanitarian cases, the military said.

In Gaza, about 25 tanks took up positions on the main north-south road, cutting off the southern town of Rafah and an adjacent refugee camp from the rest of the strip.