Palestinians Israel

Israeli combat helicopters blasted a building housing Hamas offices in this Palestinian-ruled city Tuesday, killing eight people, including two senior leaders of the militant Islamic movement and two children. Islamic militants swiftly vowed revenge, and 10 months after Palestinians launched their revolt against Israeli occupation, the deadly spiral of violence again began to hurtle out of control.

Israeli combat helicopters pounded Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's police headquarters in Gaza City on Monday while Jerusalem cranked into a red-hot alert over warnings of terrorist bombings. A jittery sense of dread gripped much of Israel and the Palestinian territories as more Arabs and Jews died or were injured in violence that threatened to escalate beyond the ability of international diplomacy to rein it in.

Ever since Israel won the 1967 Mideast war and expanded its borders, it has faced calls from some Christian churches to cede back land to the displaced Palestinians. But 10 months of continuing violence in the Holy Land are further raising tensions between Jewish and mainline Protestant and Eastern Orthodox leaders in the United States. As deaths mount and the Mideast peace process grinds to a near-halt, these churches are stepping up criticism of Israeli policy and military tactics.

One of Israel's top religious leaders has found backing in Jewish law for the government's policy of hunting and killing suspected Palestinian militants, a practice that has garnered U.S. and international condemnation. Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau says Jewish law authorizes the government to engage in "active prevention" to stop Palestinians from carrying out terrorist attacks.

An Israeli teenager was shot to death in the West Bank, and three bombs exploded near Israeli vehicles hours after Palestinians buried a militant killed in an Israeli missile attack. Palestinians opened fire near the entrance of Givat Zeev, a settlement north of Jerusalem, killing a 17-year-old boy, Israeli radio said.

Firing missiles from a hilltop army base, Israeli forces killed a prominent member of the militant Islamic group Hamas on Wednesday as he drove on a West Bank road. The shooting of Salah Darwaza perpetuated the circular argument between the Mideast antagonists: Israel said it had targeted Darwaza because he was a "senior terrorist," while Palestinians said Israeli "assassinations" only inflame their uprising.

In a show of solidarity with Israelis, about 5,000 members of Los Angeles' Jewish community rallied Sunday to reaffirm their support in the face of ongoing violence, economic hardship and demoralization in the Holy Land. The rally was billed as a "people to people" demonstration, rather than a more controversial display of political support for the Israeli government, now led by conservative Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The Tmaizeh cousins, wives and children were driving home from a wedding when a white car suddenly intercepted them. One, maybe two gunmen sprayed the Palestinian family with bursts of automatic weapon fire and then fled toward Israel. In barely a minute, 3-month-old Diyaa and two of his adult relatives lay dead, killed by suspected Jewish extremists in the latest grim twist to the relentless bloodshed convulsing the Middle East.

Foreign ministers from the Group of 8 nations threw their support Thursday behind deploying neutral monitors to help calm tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. In a final communique issued at the end of a two-day meeting, the ministers said the monitors must be acceptable to both sides. Their presence, the ministers said, could help implement the recommendations of an international commission, the only way, they said, to end the nine months of violence and restart the peace process.

Enraged Palestinians buried their latest martyrs Wednesday as Israel said its deployment of more troops and tanks in the West Bank is not a prelude to invasion but a means of putting pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Army checkpoints sprung up on West Bank roads controlled by Israel, and a cluster of seven newly positioned tanks could be seen at an army base in Gush Etzion, a block of Jewish settlements south of Jerusalem.