Two Israelis are killed in raid on Gaza settlement
War on terrorism: Middle East
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Your support makes all the difference.At least one Palestinian guerrilla broke into a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip last night, killing two teenage Israeli settlers and blowing another gaping hole in the intensifying efforts by Washington and its allies to calm the Middle East conflict in the aftermath of the US outrages.
The militant Palestinian group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call last night to Hizbollah television in Lebanon.
It came as Israel was smarting from public confirmation from President George Bush that the United States supports a solution to the Middle East conflict which includes the creation of a Palestinian state a reaffirmation of US policy which was highly significant because of its timing.
The gunman blasted his way into a beachside Jewish settlement in north-west Gaza shortly after dark and was last night bunkered in a building, surrounded by Israeli troops amid reports of heavy exchanges of fire. Officials said two teenagers were killed in the raid a girl and a boy and that at least 10 people, including three Israeli soldiers, had been injured.
The Palestinian gunman or possibly gunmen penetrated Elei Sinai, a settlement of some 90 families built by Israel in contravention of international law in the fenced-in strip, home to 1.2 million Palestinians and several thousand Israeli settlers.
The Qatar-based Arabic-language Al Jazeera television station reported that two armed Palestinians took part in the raid. Israel's Channel One reported that a family of four had been taken hostage, but this remained unconfirmed several hours after the beginning of the raid.
The Israeli television station said that Israeli army officers were talking to the Palestinian gunman by megaphone. He had been firing at random at surrounding houses. An army spokesman said he was unsure about whether the gunman had seized hostages and that he was checking these reports. The army was patrolling the area, warning settlers to stay indoors.
One of the settlers, Eli Bohadana, said: "We heard shooting and we quickly brought the children into the bathroom." His home is just a few yards from the house the gunman attacked. "We heard a real gunfight in the settlement, shooting between houses, and we knew it was something unusual."
If there are hostages, it will be an ominous first during this conflict. There have been attacks by Israeli F-16s, Palestinian suicide bombs, Israeli missile strikes, Palestinian lynchings and drive-by shootings, attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians, and mortar strikes and shootings by Palestinians on settlements. But there has so far been no hostage-taking.
But Palestinian militants in Gaza have penetrated settlements, and carried out killings, during the past 12 months of bloodshed. Several weeks ago, guerrillas from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) also broke into an Israeli army base, shooting dead three soldiers.
The impact of last night's events, that followed days of simmering violence, can only be negative on the US-led efforts to get Israel and the Palestinians to calm down the conflict so that it can include Arab and Islamic states in its anti-terror coalition.
Israel will intensify its pressure on Yasser Arafat to arrest and jail militants, particularly from the Islamic-nationalist groups Islamic Jihad which was responsible for a car bomb attack in Jerusalem on Monday and Hamas, but also other paramilitaries waging war against Israel inside the occupied territories. The Palestinians have been quick to point out that Israel has carried out by far the most killings since the latest truce talks killing 18 Palestinians in under a week.
But last night the Palestinian Authority issued a statement condemning the attack, and promising to take the toughest measures against the perpetrators. Mr Arafat described it as a violation of the ceasefire, which he was determined to crack down on.
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