Israeli helicopter gunships rocketed the car of a Palestinian intelligence officer in the West Bank today, killing two people and wounding 16 others.
Palestinian officials said it was a deliberate assassination attempt.
Mr Abdel-Karim Oweis, the intelligence officer who Palestinian security officials believe was the target of the Israeli attack, was lightly wounded, hospital officials said.
They said Mr Mo'tassem al-Sabbah, an activist with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction who was in the car, and Allam Jaloudi, a police officer near the vehicle at the time of the strike, were killed.
Sixteen others were wounded, the hospital officials said.
The two deaths takes the overall toll to 523 since the late-September eruption of fighting in Israel and the Palestinian territories. They comprise 429 Palestinians, 78 Israelis, 13 Israeli Arabs, two Romanians and one German.
A Reuters reporter at the scene said four Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at Oweis's car. Bloodstains and the car's mangled remains were spread across the road.
The helicopter strike was the latest violence in a week of attacks that has included the killing of a four-month-old Palestinian baby and the stoning to death of two Israeli teenagers who lived in a West Bank Jewish settlement.
The missile strike came hours after US President Mr George W. Bush called a new cycle of Middle East killings abhorrent.
"The death in the Middle East is abhorrent, and our nation weeps when people lose their lives, Bush told a news conference yesterday.And what we must do is work hard to break the cycle of violence," he said.