Police kill Israeli Arab as tensions heighten

JERUSALEM - Israeli police killed an Israeli Arab in an exchange of fire and a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza wounded a Jewish settler, heightening tensions yesterday after Israel's assassination of a top Hamas leader.

In what police described as a politically motivated attack, two Israeli Arab gunmen ambushed a patrol vehicle in northern Israel.

"The policemen stopped, left the vehicle and shot back, hitting the terrorists," northern district police chief Yaacov Borovsky told Army Radio. Police said one of the men was killed and the other wounded.

The attack, a day after Israel killed Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in a helicopter missile strike in Gaza, was a rare instance of Israeli Arabs taking up arms.

Members of the community - about one in five Israelis is an Arab - have been generally sympathetic to their Palestinian brethren but rarely take part in militancy.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian militants fired four Qassam rockets, wounding a settler in the Jewish settlement of Nissanit, the Israeli Army said. The other three rockets landed inside Israel, but caused no casualties or damage.

- REUTERS