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The attack on Israel, the most destructive launched by the Iraqis insix days of war, demolished apartment buildings and storefronts. TheIsraeli deaths, all apparently from heart attacks, also raised the issueof whether Israel's government, widely praised for not retaliating aftertwo earlier Scud attacks, would now strike back.

The White House condemned the incident as a "brutal act of terroragainst innocent victims" and lauded Israel for showing "remarkablerestraint in the face of this aggression."

The attack came on a day when Iraqi forces in southern Iraq alsolobbed at least six Scud missiles at targets in Saudi Arabia. U.S.Patriot batteries there successfully parried the attacks by knockingdown several missiles, while the others fell harmlessly either in thedesert or in the Persian Gulf. But the Patriots, which had performedflawlessly until yesterday, failed to intercept the Scud aimed at TelAviv about 8:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. EST).

Iraqi television aired videotape showing two more captured Americanpilots, and Iraqi authorities released casualty figures saying that 41Iraqis had been killed and 191 wounded in allied attacks since the warbegan. The Iraqi toll, delivered to the United Nations, would appear tocontradict accounts from terrified refugees but support U.S. assertionsthat "collateral damage" to non-military targets has been minimized.

Aerial photographs showed fires at wells and tanks in the Wafra oilfield in southern Kuwait, about 10 miles north of the Saudi border,according to U.S. military officials in Saudi Arabia. Oil industryexecutives also reported blazing tanks at two facilities 25 milesfarther north on the outskirts of Kuwait City, although it was not clearwhether those fires were set by allied bombing in the area ordeliberately by Iraq.

Pentagon officials said the thick black smoke might be a nuisance forpilots trying to find their targets in the area and could complicateefforts to defend Saudi Arabia from further Scud attacks. But a largerconcern is that yesterday's destruction foreshadows Iraqi intentions tocripple operations at one of the world's richest oil patches.

Petroleum experts said such a tactic could cause environmentalproblems and destroy Kuwait's production and storage capacity, althoughoil in the subterranean fields would not be affected. Even so, thedevelopment caused jitters in the oil markets as prices jumped nearly $3a barrel.

Worries about terrorism also increased, as police in Brazil andLebanon reported bombings thought to be connected to the gulf war. InParis, the French government expelled 10 Iraqis and six unidentifiedforeigners Tuesday after an anonymous warning of plans to attack an oilfacility near Marseilles. In Tampa, Fla., officials preparing forSunday's Super Bowl continued to tighten what may be the tightestsecurity ever for an American sporting event.

Clearing skies over much of Iraq permitted allied warplanes tointensify their bombing and reconnaissance missions yesterday, as totalsorties in Operation Desert Storm increased to more than 10,000 sincethe war began Thursday. In other action, Navy bombers attacked andapparently sank an Iraqi minelaying ship, and later attacked threesmaller boats, according to U.S. military officials in Riyadh.

Despite an intensive allied search-and-destroy operation aimed atwiping out the Scud threat, yesterday's successful attack on Israelillustrated that the missiles, although crude and militarilyinsignificant, have become an effective weapon of terrorism that hasaffected allied strategy in the war's early stages. Although twoU.S.-manned Patriot batteries were rushed to Israel from Europe onSaturday, Pentagon officials had cautioned that the missile defense wasnot foolproof.

In private briefings this week, military officials have hedged theirassessment of how many Scud launchers -- both fixed and mobile -- remainto be destroyed, and slightly raised their estimates of the number inthe Iraqi arsenal, according to congressional sources.

Pentagon officials yesterday expressed growing frustration at theallies' inability to knock out the Scud launchers. Many plannersunderestimated the Scud, one senior official said, by failing torecognize that "a militarily insignificant pinprick that has absolutelyzero impact" nevertheless can carry considerable punch as a"geopolitical terror weapon."

Allies Wage Protracted 'Scud Hunt'

Variously referred to in the Pentagon -- with a certain irritation --as "the great Scud hunt" or "the Scud diversion," allied efforts toknock out the Iraqi missiles could drag on indefinitely, a Pentagonofficial said.

Officials also expressed chagrin at the press corps' demand forimmediate results from what pilots call BDA -- bomb damage assessments.Extensive World War II BDA was not undertaken until 1946-48, one sourceobserved, adding, "If you want definitive BDA on what we did in downtownBaghdad, you and I will have to take a trip there after the war."

Because of the bad weather, some of the bombing over the weekend wasdone using radar. Satellite and reconnaissance planes were delayed inscanning the damage beyond "a rough judgment," the official said. Moreextensive damage assessment results are likely to be released as earlyas today, according to White House officials, who said President Bushhad reviewed new photographs of the bombed targets and was satisfiedwith the results.

Noting that the weather improved yesterday over much of Iraq andpermitted an intensified bombing and reconnaissance campaign, Lt. Gen.Thomas Kelly, senior operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff,told reporters, "I can assure you we're working very hard.

War planners predicted again yesterday that the bombing phase ofOperation Desert Storm will continue for three to four weeks beforeground assaults begin in earnest, with the entire war likely to lastseveral months. "We're not going to punch ourselves out," Kelly added.

The first six days of the air war have concentrated on "puttingBaghdad out of business as a center of command, to make communication asdifficult as possible," an official said. "We're still in that phase."

The next phase will focus more intensely on the Kuwaiti theater. Thetiming depends on weather -- persistent cloud cover has put the bombingschedule back a day or two, one senior official said -- and otherfactors.

"There's a lot of work to be done yet," a Pentagon official said."Many of the bridges between Baghdad and the KTO {Kuwaiti Theater ofOperations} are still standing. Some have been attacked and are stillstanding."

For reasons not fully understood by U.S. planners, allied bombersalso have had more trouble than expected in knocking out Iraqiairfields. Although an airfield would appear to be "a sitting duck thatnever moves . . . it turns out it's tough to put it down and keep itdown," an official said. Iraqi engineers have been filling cratersquickly and otherwise improvising ways to keep their runways working.

The problem has had limited impact on allied operations because Iraqiplanes usually have chosen to flee or remain hidden rather thanchallenge the invaders. If that strategy persists, a source saidyesterday, Saddam "may still have a sizable air force" whenever the warends.

The Pentagon also is expected to release some videotaped footage ofair strikes that have been less than the pinpoint successes aired thusfar. One taped sequence shows a raid that targeted a government ministryin Baghdad but demolished a building across the street because the pilotmisidentified his target.

Such mistakes are inevitable in such a massive bombing campaign, U.S.officials said, and "collateral damage" to civilian facilities isbelieved to have been relatively light in the first six days of bombing.One U.S. government estimate puts the number of Iraqi civilian deaths ina four-week bombing campaign at roughly 2,000.

U.S. B-52 bombers are now flying from bases near Jiddah in SaudiArabia and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Pentagon officials aredelighted that none of the aging workhorses has been shot down yet, areflection of flight plans that have put them over less-defended targetsrather than downtown Baghdad.

Although bombers have flown many raids over the Iraqi RepublicanGuard formations, an official said, "we have yet to really concentrateon that target set" and the full fury of the B-52s will be unleashed onthe Guard in the near future. The official Iranian news agency reportedyesterday that allied warplanes have attacked the strategic Iraqi cityof Basra, site of Iraq's military headquarters for operations in Kuwait;a refugee reported that Republican Guards' garrisons had been hit in "abig, big attack."

Bombers continue to strike command-and-control bunkers and will do sountil the last day of the war, an official said. Saddam has beentargeted as part of the larger cadre of senior Iraqi commanders, but isnow believed to be hiding in hotels or other civilian centers.

New Policy on Downed Aircraft

U.S. officials listed no new downed U.S. aircraft yesterday andinstituted a policy of delaying announcements of lost planes for 72hours to permit search-and-rescue missions. About 70 percent of the morethan 10,000 allied sorties have been flown by the U.S. Air Force, whichhas lost only two or three planes to enemy fire; other Air Force losseshave been from accidents, according to a Pentagon official.

After two more captured U.S. pilots were shown on Iraqi televisionyesterday, lawmakers pressed Pentagon officials about why the UnitedStates had failed to destroy the television facilities there. U.S.intelligence believes that Iraq is broadcasting on a low-power stationaround Baghdad. A Cable News Network spokesman said Iranian televisionwas picking up Iraqi signals and rebroadcasting them.

Iraq said Tuesday it will abide by the international conventions onthe treatment of war prisoners if the same principles are applied toPalestinians living under Israeli occupation. White House spokesmanMarlin Fitzwater again warned that Saddam could "be held accountable forhis treatment of the POWs and other crimes."

Bush issued his statement of sympathy for Israel after meeting fornearly two hours with national security and military aides. According toadministration officials, Bush called in Defense Secretary Richard B.Cheney, Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,Secretary of State James A. Baker III, national security adviser BrentScowcroft and others for a status report on the war. The session beganjust after the attack on Tel Aviv and also dealt with the continuingU.S. effort to keep Israel out of the conflict.

The cost of the war continued to climb, at home and abroad. Israelsaid yesterday it will need at least $13 billion in additional economicaid from the United States because of the war and the cost of absorbingJewish immigrants from the Soviet Union. On Capitol Hill, FederalReserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the air war against Iraq is costingthe U.S. Treasury "under half a billion dollars a day."

The White House confirmed that Bush had sent special envoy RichardArmitage to Jordan for talks with King Hussein. One major reason for thesudden trip, a senior administration official said, was to discuss theJordanian leader's Saturday speech, in which he warned that Jordan woulddefend its airspace. That statement was widely interpreted as a threatagainst Israel, which likely would fly over Jordan in any retaliatoryraid on Iraq. Armitage is trying to persuade King Hussein not to furtherwiden the war by firing on Israeli planes.

Refugees arriving in Jordan from Iraq offered eyewitness accounts ofcivilian injuries and damage to non-military targets caused by thebombing of Baghdad. The accounts could not be verified independently,given the lack of communication with the Iraqi capital. But therefugees, many of them Egyptian workers, said U.S. statements thatcivilian targets had been spared were "propaganda." Iraqi radio alsoreported that U.S. pilots had damaged the Iraqi national museum during abombing raid yesterday.

Western peace activists fleeing Baghdad also described a city thathas "no water, no sewerage, no electricity, nothing to cook with and nopetrol for bringing food from outlying districts," as Australian JackKing put it. Others reported "very little" damage in downtown Baghdadbut asserted that some pilots had missed their targets.

'Saddam, Our Beloved, Hit Tel Aviv'

Iraq threatened suicide attacks in retaliation for the bombing andsaid Iraqi forces will defeat the allies' "smart weapons" with faith."The historic movement of the Arab and Islamic nation is our weapon,while the computer and electronics are theirs," said Iraqi radiomonitored in Cyprus by news services. "Victory is for the faithful . . .. Faith is our weapon while theirs is infidelity."

In Jordan, 500 mostly Jordanian and Iraqi women chanted and wavedbanners outside the U.S. Embassy in Amman, urging Saddam to attackIsrael with chemical weapons. "Saddam, our beloved, hit Tel Aviv withchemicals," they said. Bush was denounced as a "butcher of children."

But in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak brushed aside Arab oppositionto the war, saying there would be no change in Egypt's staunch supportfor the allied effort to dislodge Saddam's forces from Kuwait. He alsorejected calls for a cease-fire to give diplomacy a new chance to workand ridiculed Saddam for the Iraqi Scud attacks on Israel. He spokebefore the latest attack hit Tel Aviv.

The newspaper of Syria's ruling Baath party was even harsher onSaddam, saying in an editorial that Iraq and its people had been "pushed. . . to suicide." It called on the Iraqi leader either to preventfurther destruction or resign, saying that would be "a manly stand."

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev called for a peaceful settlementto the gulf war and warned that conflict should not be allowed to spreadfurther. But he also reiterated his support for the effort to liberateKuwait. Meanwhile, an independent Soviet news agency quoted anunidentified member of the Soviet general staff as saying that 90percent of the allied air strikes were missing their targets.

United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar reiteratedhis call to Saddam to "respond positively" to his Jan. 15 appeal for awithdrawal from Kuwait in return for the opportunity to have otherissues discussed, as several non-aligned nations pressed peaceproposals. But there appeared to be little hope for such diplomacy.

Contributing to this report were staff writers Ann Devroy, John M. Berry, David S. Broder, Helen Dewar, Tom Kenworthy, George Lardner Jr.,John M. Goshko, Dana Priest, R. Jeffrey Smith, Barton Gellman, and correspondents Nora Boustany in Jordan, William Claiborne in Jerusalem and Michael Dobbs in Moscow.