Israeli police killed an Israeli Arab in an exchange of fire and a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza wounded a Jewish settler, heightening tensions today 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 late last night.
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 since the start of a Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
Members of the community - about one in five Israelis is an Arab - have been generally sympathetic to the Palestinians 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.
Dozens of such crude rockets have been fired from Gaza at Jewish settlements, army posts and Israeli towns in the past three years of violence. Due to the inaccuracy of the weapons, there are usually no casualties.
As Israel marked its annual remembrance day for the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust, police were on high alert for what Hamas has vowed would be "100 retaliations" for Rantissi's death.