MELISSA BLOCK, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, co-host:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
It was the second straight day of violence in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli air force plane fired missiles at three Hamas militants. An Israeli military spokesman said that the car they were traveling in was hit, but the men escaped. The spokesman said that the three had fired a mortar shell at a Jewish settlement in Gaza, and were preparing to launch more. NPR's Linda Gradstein joins us now from Jerusalem.
And, Linda, what more can you tell us about the missile strike in Gaza?
LINDA GRADSTEIN reporting:
Israeli military officials say it was not an assassination attempt but an assault on militants as they were firing. The gunmen escaped. They apparently jumped out of the car just before the missile hit, but the car that they were traveling in was destroyed. A spokesman for Hamas said it wasn't clear if the men had fired mortars.
Yesterday, a Chinese worker and two Palestinian agricultural workers were killed in a Palestinian mortar attack. Also yesterday, Israeli troops killed a commander of the Islamic Jihad in the West Bank. And both yesterday and today, there was rocket and mortar fire on both Jewish settlements in Gaza and on southern Israel. In some of those attacks, there was some property damage, although no one was injured.
SIEGEL: But if I understand you, when the Israeli spokesman says, `This was not an assassination attempt against these Hamas guys,' he's saying Israel is still observing the terms of the February cease-fire.
GRADSTEIN: That's right. According to the February cease-fire, Israel said it would not assassinate Palestinians unless they were what Israel calls `ticking bombs'--in other words, somebody who either had carried out an attack, was in the process of carrying out an attack or was just about to. However, Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is in Gaza holding talks with people from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, sharply criticized Israel, said it was a violation of the cease-fire and said future acts like this could cause the whole cease-fire to break down.
Despite the rhetoric, there does seem to be a sense on both sides that neither side wants the cease-fire to collapse, and so they're both kind of trying to draw back and trying to contain the violence.
SIEGEL: There is a new poll published in Israel today that shows support for the withdrawal from Gaza, support among Israelis, is dropping.
GRADSTEIN: Right. That poll was commissioned by Israeli radio, and it showed popular support for the withdrawal at 50 percent; that's the lowest it's been since the withdrawal was announced and voted on. Opposition to the pullback is up to 40 percent. Israeli analysts said they believed it was part of a feeling of pessimism that the withdrawal will lead to any real change. The outgoing chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, last week gave a few interviews in which he said that even after the withdrawal from Gaza, he expects a new wave of violence.
However, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the past few days has repeated over and over that the withdrawal will go ahead as scheduled. He urged the settlers to leave quietly rather than trying to make more trouble. And today, he charged the settlers with what he called `reckless incitement' against the government. He was apparently referring to calls to resist the withdrawal physically.
SIEGEL: What actually is happening in the settlements in Gaza which are to be emptied out later in the summer? What kind of preparations are under way?
GRADSTEIN: Well, there have been very extensive preparations by the army and the police about how to remove people from their houses. They're going to declare Gaza a closed military zone; nobody will be able to get in or out. So the preparations on the military and police side have been extensive.
However, what's going to happen to the approximately 9,000 Jewish settlers living in Gaza--about half of them children--really isn't clear. There haven't been any real concrete preparations made on the civilian side where these people will go. They say they're going to set up a giant tent city in the Negev Desert because they only want to be moved as a group together. They will not agree to go to empty apartments in southern Israel; there are about 400 empty apartments. So it's really not clear what's going to happen the day after the pullout.
SIEGEL: Thank you, Linda.
GRADSTEIN: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Linda Gradstein, speaking to us from Jerusalem.
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