Israeli airstrike kills six in car full of militants

The car was leaving a militant training camp, Israeli military said.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israeli aircraft fired missiles into a car carrying Palestinian militants Friday, killing six people including a bomb maker and his 5-year-old daughter, in the deadliest Israeli attack since the Hamas-led Palestinian government took office.
The airstrike in the southern Gaza town of Rafah came as the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, and moderate President Mahmoud Abbas met to try to settle some of their growing differences.
Earlier this week, Abbas seized more powers from the Islamic militants, including control over security forces. Abbas and Haniyeh agreed to set up a liaison committee and to work together to resolve the looming Palestinian financial crisis, the men said after the meeting.
Training camp targeted
The Israeli strike targeted a training camp of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group for gunmen from various factions, including many with ties to the Islamic militant Hamas. The group has attacked Israeli targets in the past, including planting bombs under tanks.
The Israeli military said the aircraft targeted the car as it was leaving the isolated training camp, and Palestinian police said four missiles were fired.
The car was destroyed and four people inside were instantly killed, police said. Two others died later of their injuries.
Among those killed were at least three militants, including Iyad Abul Aynayn, 29, who had ties to Hamas and was a chief bomb maker for the group, and his 5-year-old daughter.
Fourteen people were wounded, most of them militants, police said.
Israel has killed scores of militants, as well as bystanders, in targeted airstrikes in more than five years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the new Hamas-led government, called the attack a "brutal massacre."
"Maybe it's an important message to the president [Abbas] today that Israel is not interested in peace or political compromises," he said.
Under pressure
Hamas has found itself under growing international pressure to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing peace agreements. In a major setback for the militants, the United States and the European Union -- the Palestinians' two major donors -- said Friday they were cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid because of the Hamas-led government's views. The U.S. and the EU said they would redirect some aid to humanitarian projects.
In a statement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said "the new Palestinian government must take responsibility for the consequences of its policies."
Haniyeh and others in Hamas criticized Friday's aid cutoff as collective punishment of the Palestinians.
The militant group has balked at meeting the international community's demands, but has also acknowledged it is broke and will have trouble covering the government payroll without foreign aid; some 140,000 Palestinians draw government salaries.
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