Palestinians take deadly toll

JERUSALEM - Palestinian gunmen shot dead at least eight Israelis at an Army roadblock in the West Bank yesterday, just 12 hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed nine people in an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

In the Gaza Strip, an Israeli was killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, Israeli security sources said.

The body of an Israeli policeman was found earlier in the West Bank and police said he was killed by Palestinians.

The surge of bloodshed in the past few days has worsened a spiral of tit-for-tat violence and cast renewed doubt over international attempts to end a conflict in which more than 1200 people have been killed in 17 months.

The mounting Israeli death toll is certain to increase public pressure on the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, whose popularity has plunged in opinion polls, to take tougher military action against the Palestinians.

Witnesses at the Army roadblock near the Jewish settlement of Ofra said Palestinian gunmen poured down automatic weapons fire from surrounding hills.

As well as the eight Israelis killed in the attack, 14 others were wounded, rescue workers said.

"Three cars were lined up at the roadblock when suddenly there was intense gunfire," a witness, Rani Sagi, told Israel Radio.

The Jerusalem suicide bombing, which caused carnage in a crowded street filled with religious Jews leaving synagogues at the end of the sabbath on Saturday night local time, drew swift Israeli retaliation.

Israeli helicopters fired five missiles at the al-Muktar police station in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, setting the building on fire but causing no casualties, Palestinian security sources said.

Palestinian installations are often evacuated when Israeli retaliation is expected.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, the Israeli Army pulled out of the Balata refugee camp in the town of Nablus, where it had mounted what it called a sweep for terrorists since Friday. But Israeli forces remained in positions surrounding the camp.

The Army invaded another refugee camp in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, on Friday and left on Saturday.

It said Israeli forces killed 30 armed Palestinians and wounded 200 at Balata and Jenin. Two Israeli soldiers were killed.

An armed group linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said it mounted yesterday's attack in the ultra-Orthodox suburb of Beit Israel in Jerusalem in revenge for the deaths of Palestinians, some of them civilians, at the camps.

"It was crazy. There were kids and adults running all over the place. I saw one woman sitting on the pavement screaming that her son had been killed," said one witness to the suicide bombing, a 22-year-old religious student from Britain who gave his name only as Alan.

An 18-month-old girl was among the dead.

The suicide bomber was named as 18-year-old Mohammed al-Chouhani, a carpenter from the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem. Dozens of people were wounded.

About 1500 Palestinian men and youths celebrated his deadly attack by marching through the streets of Dheisheh camp, chanting victory slogans.

Some fired shots in the air as residents threw sweets into the crowd.

The United States called the bombing a "terrorist outrage" and again urged Arafat to rein in militants as Israel and the Palestinians traded familiar blame over who was responsible for ratcheting up the hatred and bloodshed.

At least 919 Palestinians and 303 Israelis have been killed since late September 2000, when a Palestinian uprising began against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after peace talks stalled.

The latest violence has raised the stakes as momentum was building behind an initiative floated by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah that would offer Israel acceptance by the Arab world in return for a withdrawal from lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

- REUTERS

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