Palestinian gunmen wounded four Israelis in a shooting on their car near a West Bank Jewish settlement, denting a militant cease-fire which is vital to a U.S.-backed peace plan.
| Do you get the impression there's a ceasefire only because they were running low on ammunition? |
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed the attack in which an Israeli woman and her three children were wounded in the shooting near the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo Sunday.
| Oh, a woman and kiddies. Well, they couldn't be expected to pass up an opportunity like that, could they? |
The incident dented a three-month cease-fire declared by Palestinian militants on June 29 and overshadowed fresh progress on a U.S-backed "road map" to peace, including a decision by Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners this week.
| So they can shoot more women and kiddies... |
Israeli officials said the attack underscored the need for moderate Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to disarm militants rather than cut deals with them to temporarily halt attacks in a 34-month-old uprising for statehood. "Tonight's terrorist attack is another grim reminder, and a bloody one, that there is no substitute...for sustained targeted and effective operations against those involved in terrorism," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said. The proximity of the attack to Bethlehem, from where Israeli forces pulled out a month ago as part of the road map, could complicate negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials over which West Bank cities Israel would withdraw from next. Palestinian Security Affairs Minister Mohammad Dahlan wants Israeli forces to withdraw from Ramallah, the West Bank's commercial capital and home to Arafat's headquarters. To that end, Palestinian police confined 20 militants from the al-Aqsa brigades who had been sheltered in Arafat's "muqata" compound to a single room to stave off a threat by the brigades to pull out of the cease-fire if they were transferred.
| To pull out of a ceasefire that doesn't appear to exist? Who's kidding whom? |
Palestinian officials said Israel had been pressing Arafat to send the men to the West Bank desert city of Jericho as a precondition for an Israeli pullback from Ramallah that would ease his own confinement. The involvement of the al-Aqsa brigades in Sunday's shooting and the group's vow to carry out more attacks was an embarrassment to Abbas's administration which has failed to fully curtail attacks by the brigades since the truce began. |