MIDDLE EAST: A Palestinian militant killed a Jewish settler in an ambush outside a settlement in the West Bank yesterday before being shot and killed by security guards from inside the enclave, Israeli officials said.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by an armed group in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement that also carried out this week's bombing at an Israeli army checkpoint outside Jerusalem that caused both Palestinian and Israeli casualties. An army spokeswoman said the man infiltrated an area close to the rear gate of the settlement of Itamar and fired on a car driven by a settler patrolling the perimeter fence.
"The assailant, armed with an AK-47 [assault rifle] shot the Israeli civilian, took the civilian's own assault rifle out of the car and tried to run away," the spokeswoman said. "Other security guards nearby rushed immediately to the scene and shot the assailant dead." The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said it carried out the attack and described it as revenge for relentless Israeli army raids into the city in which many of its cell commanders have been killed recently.
A spokesman said the gunman was Youssef Ahmed Hassan Hanani (25) from Beit Furik village. He said a second gunman escaped the area unhurt.
Nablus has been the largest West Bank base of Fatah and Islamist militancy throughout the revolt and has been subject to many Israeli incursions, arrest sweeps and blockades.
Itamar is an enclave of ultra-nationalist Jews on a hill overlooking Nablus and has been attacked by militants before.
Israeli police said they had arrested a third Palestinian over a botched bombing at an army roadblock on Jerusalem's fringes in which two Palestinians were killed and 19 people wounded, including six Israeli policemen.
The al-Aqsa Brigades said their target had been Israeli security forces and apologised for the Palestinian casualties.
Also yesterday, Israeli tanks and troops thrust into a district of Gaza City next to a Jewish settlement and wounded four Palestinians in exchanges of fire, witnesses said.
Violence has surged in Gaza since Prime Minister Sharon unveiled his plan entailing a withdrawal of 8,000 settlers from among 1.3 million Palestinians in the teeming coastal enclave.
Aides to Mr Sharon said he was furious at remarks by his deputy on Thursday that Israel would eventually have to dismantle many settlements in the West Bank rather than just four tiny ones out of 120 as now envisaged.
They said Vice Premier Ehud Olmert's comments that Israel would have to quit much more of the West Bank, to avoid ruling a large Palestinian population and preserve its status as a democratic Jewish state, did not represent Mr Sharon's views.