Palestinian mob kills two Israelis

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - A wrong turn. An infuriated Palestinian mob. The bloodied bodies of two Israelis dumped into the street as Palestinians cheered and flashed victory signs.

Hours later, Israeli attack helicopters reduce the police station to rubble and rocket several other Palestinian buildings in retaliation for what Prime Minister Ehud Barak said was a cold-blooded lynching.

The attack on the soldiers yesterday was stunning in its brutality and is likely to sharply increase tensions between the two sides.

The killing took place inside the Palestinian police station in Ramallah. A mob of hundreds of Palestinians had rushed to the building after rumors spread that members of an Israeli undercover unit was being held inside.

About a dozen men climbed into the police station through a window and a few minutes later, gunshots could be heard.

Two men appeared at the window, sticking their bloody hands out.

The crowd roared with approval.

Italian private Mediaset TV broadcast footage of one of the soldiers dangling head down from a rope from a window.

Crowds stood below waving fists and cheering.

Two people standing at a bloody windowsill inside of the police station then dropped the body.

A crowd quickly gathered by the body, some raising their fists in exultation. One man raised a window frame over his head and began bashing the soldier's body. The body of a second soldier was thrown out of the door, witnesses said. Blood could be seen covering his face.

The Israeli army said two soldiers were killed, though Barak later announced, in an interview with CNN, that three soldiers were "lynched and mutilated.''

Israel radio later quoted defense officials as saying that a third man was burned to death in the car. TV footage showed Palestinian firemen dousing a burnt, overturned car.

Israel retaliated with rocket attacks and vowed to hunt down the killers.

"We will settle accounts with them,'' Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Israel's transport minister, said on Channel Two television. "We are going through the pictures and identifying each one, the civilians, the policemen, each one. We will settle accounts with them. It may take a day, it may take a week, it may take a year, but we will settle accounts with them.''

By nightfall, the Palestinian town of Ramallah was in darkness after Israeli helicopters blasted the town's generators.

Both sides were accusing the other of escalating the conflict.

"The peace process is over,'' said Ramallah resident Mouhib Barghouti as he watched Israeli helicopters rocket a second police station near Ramallah. "It is too late to think about it now. The whole thing has gone too far. There is fault now on both sides.''