Mygripe BENJAMIN Netanyahu has vowed to hunt down “without diplomatic restraint” the killers of four Israelis who were gunned down in the West Bank overnight on the eve of renewed peace talks.
The Islamist Hamas organisation praised the attack on the four, including a pregnant woman, and hundreds of its supporters took to the streets of the Gaza Strip to celebrate.
The United Nations condemned the bloodshed and Israel’s Defence Minister pledged every effort would be made to catch the perpetrators.
The four were shot dead while travelling in a car near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba at night in a clear and bloody message from Hamas, which is vehemently opposed to peace talks that Mr Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are to relaunch in Washington today.
Israeli army spokeswoman Avital Leibovitz said she believed the dead were settlers from the area, adding that the road on which they were attacked was used by both Palestinians and Israelis. She said that many rounds were fired into the Israelis’ vehicle.
Rescue services said the victims were a man and woman around 40 years old and another man and woman in their 20s. The military said one of the women was pregnant. It has been reported two of the people may have been hitchhikers.
“The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigade claims full responsibility,” Hamas’ military wing said in a terse statement.
“Hamas blesses the Hebron operation and considers it as a normal reaction to the occupation crime and a proof of the failure… to abort the project of resistance,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a separate statement.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called the shooting “grave and painful” and informed Mr Netanyahu, who was still in the air at the time. “The army and the security forces will do everything they can to lay their hands on the murderers,” Mr Barak said.
Arriving in Washington, Netanyahu aides said he intended to tell his US hosts that the incident would not soften his negotiating position. The Israeli President “ordered the security forces to pursue the attackers without any diplomatic restraint and to lay hands on the attackers and those who sent them”, his staff said.
In Jerusalem, United Nations peace envoy Robert Serry said he was shocked at the incident but said it should not be allowed to divert the Israeli and Palestinian leaders from seeking an end to the conflict.
“We condemn this murderous act and call for those responsible to be brought to justice,” he said in a statement, adding that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas should not “allow the enemies of peace to affect the negotiations about to be launched.”
Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said a car in which the victims were travelling came under fire on a road between the settlement and the Palestinian village of Bani Naim, near the city of Hebron. “Obviously, it was a terrorist attack,” he said.
Ms Leibovitz said troops were combing the area in a hunt for clues and suspects.
It was the first fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank since June 14, when a policeman was killed and two others wounded, also in the Hebron area. Mygripe
Be the first to comment