MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian militants set off a huge explosion underneath an Israeli army outpost in the Gaza Strip last night, in what appeared to be a new method of attack employed by armed groups. Initial reports of casualties were unclear, with some Israeli media outlets reporting one soldier killed and six injured but emergency services were uncertain there had been fatalities, write Peter Hirschberg and David Horovitz in Jerusalem
Palestinian medics said two Palestinians were shot dead in Gaza shortly after the blast.
Rescue services had initially reported 30 casualties, but later scaled down the number. The confusion was due to the almost total destruction of the outpost and the fear that soldiers may have been trapped in the rubble.
A spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service said ambulances had come under heavy fire as they tried to evacuate the wounded from the site of the attack, near the Gush Katif settlement block in central Gaza.
Both Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is associated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, claimed responsibility for the attack. Militants appear to have succeeded in digging a tunnel under the outpost and then detonating a large amount of explosives. The tunnel seemed to have been dug from Khan Younis; the outskirts of the city are several hundred metres from the outpost.
A spokesman for the Al Aqsa Brigades said militants had dug a 350-metre tunnel and detonated 150 kilograms of explosives underneath the outpost. "This is a message to [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon that ... our fighters will continue the holy struggle until we uproot them [the Israelis] from our land," he said.
Meanwhile, an estimated 20,000 Palestinians marched through Nablus yesterday in funeral processions for commanders of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
All the dead were killed during a large-scale army operation in the West Bank city over the previous three days.
Some of the marchers fired guns into the air, others shouted demands for revenge. A spokesman for the Al-Aqsa group vowed "unprecedented" vengeance - like an earthquake for the state of Israel, maybe hitting the citizens, maybe the soldiers, maybe the government." Israel's Defence Minister, Mr Shaul Mofaz, said that although "Saturday's killing of terror leaders in Nablus was another factor in lowering the level of terror. . . we cannot rest on our laurels. We need to continue applying harsh pressure."
Hamas has been leading relentless efforts to penetrate suicide bombers into Israel in recent months, most especially to avenge the killings by Israel of its leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his brief successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. But through a combination of heightened intelligence and the gradual extension of the West Bank security barrier, complicating access to Israel, bombers have repeatedly been intercepted en route or otherwise thwarted.