Barghouti defies court; violence surges

Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi thumbed his nose at the Israeli justice system yesterday as militants mounted attacks in the Gaza Strip, destroying a tank and killing two soldiers.

With Israeli security forces on heightened alert on the eve of the Jewish New Year holiday, police thwarted an attempt to smuggle a 600-kg (1,320-pound) car bomb - one of the largest ever discovered - from the West Bank into Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had declared only a day before that conditions were ripe for a possible peace breakthrough, vowed to keep up the fight against "terror organisations".

Handcuffed but defiant, Barghouthi - a charismatic activist mentioned as a possible successor to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat - told a Tel Aviv court it had no authority to try him on charges that he masterminded attacks that killed 26 Israelis.

"I am a freedom fighter," he declared, before being heckled by the father of an Israeli teenager killed in a suicide bombing in June who shouted: "You are a murderer. You are a terrorist."

Israel hopes Barghouthi's trial will prove that top Palestinian leaders - including Arafat - have been behind the killings of Israelis during a two-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation.

Hours before he appeared in a civilian court, militants carried out twin attacks on Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip.

A bomb planted on a dirt road exploded next to a tank, blowing off the turret, burning one crew member to death and wounding two other crewmen, an Israeli army spokesman said.

It was the third time Palestinians have destroyed one of Israel's Merkava-3 tanks, among the world's most advanced armoured vehicles. Two earlier bomb attacks had forced the army to make modifications to deal with the threat.

An umbrella group of Palestinian militants claimed responsibility for the tank attack.

In a separate incident, one soldier was killed and a second wounded in a gun and grenade attack on their vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip, the army said. Troops shot the gunman dead.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group linked to Fatah, said it carried out the ambush.

Earlier, a border patrol unit chased two cars near the Israeli city of Hadera and found one rigged with explosives attached to a mobile phone that was to have been used to set off the charge. Bomb disposal teams carried out a controlled blast.

"This is the Palestinian terrorists' way of sending Israelis Rosh Hashana New Year's greetings," said David Baker, an official in Sharon's office. "A massive terrorist attack against innocent Israelis has been prevented."