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http://www.newsmax.com/international/israel_palestinians/2007/12/28/60273.html
2 Israeli Soldiers Shot Dead by Gunmen
Friday, December 28, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Two off-duty Israeli soldiers hiking in the West Bank were
killed Friday by Palestinian gunmen but before they died, they managed to
fire at their assailants and kill one of them, according to the military and
a woman who was with the hikers but escaped unharmed.
The woman, who was not identified, told Israel Radio she and the two
Israelis, who were both in their 20s, had been hiking in the hills outside
the Palestinian town of Hebron when they were approached by a jeep carrying
several Palestinian gunmen who fired at them. The army confirmed those
details and added that the two Israelis returned fire with assault rifles
they were carrying before they died.
The army said a second Palestinian assailant was seriously wounded in the
firefight. Palestinian security officials confirmed one Palestinian died in
the clash. No Palestinian militant group immediately claimed responsibility
for the attack.
Witnesses who arrived at the site later said they saw a jeep riddled with
bullet holes and spattered with blood being towed away for investigation.
They said Israeli troops and Palestinian police were working together at the
scene.
The army said the two soldiers killed were Jewish settlers who lived in
Kiryat Arba, a settlement next to Hebron.
The apparent ambush came hours after troops killed a bodyguard for the
Palestinians' chief negotiator in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said
he has issued a new directive to all government ministries requiring his
approval for construction of Jewish housing in the West Bank.
Several lower-level bureaucratic decisions this month to move ahead with
such construction caught Olmert off guard and angered the Palestinians and
the United States just as Israel and Palestinians were renewing
U.S.-brokered peace talks.
The official in Olmert's office, speaking on condition of anonymity because
the decision had not yet been officially announced, said the directive did
not apply to east Jerusalem which Israel annexed in 1967 but which is
claimed by the Palestinians as the capital of their future state.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Friday that Olmert has not
called off plans to build the new homes in Har Homa, and has not ordered a
halt to all construction in West Bank settlements.
Israel will not confiscate land for new settlement construction and will not
"outwardly expand" its West Bank settlements, Regev said, meaning that
construction can continue inside the settlements' existing borders. Israel
also has canceled financial incentives designed to persuade Israelis to live
in the West Bank, Regev said.
"But in the Israeli perspective, the West Bank is not Jerusalem and
Jerusalem is not the West Bank," he said.
In an overnight raid in Ramallah, Israeli forces shot and killed a bodyguard
for Ahmed Qureia, the chief Palestinian negotiator in the peace talks
recently relaunched after a violent hiatus of seven years.
Israel has been limiting its operations in the West Bank, ruled by
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as it negotiates a peace agreement with
Abbas's moderate government. On Thursday, Qureia announced that peace talks
would continue after a spat over Israeli settlements.
But late Thursday, the Israeli military sent a team into a suburb of
Ramallah, the seat of Abbas' government, to arrest one of Qureia's
bodyguards, a member of the Palestinian security forces who the military
said was implicated in armed activity against Israel and had provided
weapons to other militants. He opened fire at troops and they fired back,
killing him, the military said.
Palestinian security officials denied the 23-year-old bodyguard fired at
troops.
Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister, condemned the operation. Israel
is trying to hinder progress in talks "by doing the opposite of its
commitments and pledges to the international community, the most dangerous
of which is the continuous assassinations of Palestinian fighters," he said
in a statement Friday.
2 Israeli Soldiers Shot Dead by Gunmen
Friday, December 28, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Two off-duty Israeli soldiers hiking in the West Bank were
killed Friday by Palestinian gunmen but before they died, they managed to
fire at their assailants and kill one of them, according to the military and
a woman who was with the hikers but escaped unharmed.
The woman, who was not identified, told Israel Radio she and the two
Israelis, who were both in their 20s, had been hiking in the hills outside
the Palestinian town of Hebron when they were approached by a jeep carrying
several Palestinian gunmen who fired at them. The army confirmed those
details and added that the two Israelis returned fire with assault rifles
they were carrying before they died.
The army said a second Palestinian assailant was seriously wounded in the
firefight. Palestinian security officials confirmed one Palestinian died in
the clash. No Palestinian militant group immediately claimed responsibility
for the attack.
Witnesses who arrived at the site later said they saw a jeep riddled with
bullet holes and spattered with blood being towed away for investigation.
They said Israeli troops and Palestinian police were working together at the
scene.
The army said the two soldiers killed were Jewish settlers who lived in
Kiryat Arba, a settlement next to Hebron.
The apparent ambush came hours after troops killed a bodyguard for the
Palestinians' chief negotiator in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said
he has issued a new directive to all government ministries requiring his
approval for construction of Jewish housing in the West Bank.
Several lower-level bureaucratic decisions this month to move ahead with
such construction caught Olmert off guard and angered the Palestinians and
the United States just as Israel and Palestinians were renewing
U.S.-brokered peace talks.
The official in Olmert's office, speaking on condition of anonymity because
the decision had not yet been officially announced, said the directive did
not apply to east Jerusalem which Israel annexed in 1967 but which is
claimed by the Palestinians as the capital of their future state.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Friday that Olmert has not
called off plans to build the new homes in Har Homa, and has not ordered a
halt to all construction in West Bank settlements.
Israel will not confiscate land for new settlement construction and will not
"outwardly expand" its West Bank settlements, Regev said, meaning that
construction can continue inside the settlements' existing borders. Israel
also has canceled financial incentives designed to persuade Israelis to live
in the West Bank, Regev said.
"But in the Israeli perspective, the West Bank is not Jerusalem and
Jerusalem is not the West Bank," he said.
In an overnight raid in Ramallah, Israeli forces shot and killed a bodyguard
for Ahmed Qureia, the chief Palestinian negotiator in the peace talks
recently relaunched after a violent hiatus of seven years.
Israel has been limiting its operations in the West Bank, ruled by
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as it negotiates a peace agreement with
Abbas's moderate government. On Thursday, Qureia announced that peace talks
would continue after a spat over Israeli settlements.
But late Thursday, the Israeli military sent a team into a suburb of
Ramallah, the seat of Abbas' government, to arrest one of Qureia's
bodyguards, a member of the Palestinian security forces who the military
said was implicated in armed activity against Israel and had provided
weapons to other militants. He opened fire at troops and they fired back,
killing him, the military said.
Palestinian security officials denied the 23-year-old bodyguard fired at
troops.
Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister, condemned the operation. Israel
is trying to hinder progress in talks "by doing the opposite of its
commitments and pledges to the international community, the most dangerous
of which is the continuous assassinations of Palestinian fighters," he said
in a statement Friday.
