Six Dead, Four Wounded, In Terrorist Attack On West Bank Jewish Community

June 20, 2002

Thursday, June 20, 2002

JERUSALEM — Palestinian gunmen killed six people — at least three of them children — after invading a home Thursday night in a Jewish settlement on the West Bank.


"There are six people dead, at least three of them children and a woman," a spokesman for the Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance service said. At least four others were wounded in the home near Nablus, settlers and rescue workers said.

A Jewish settler spokesman said the woman was the children's mother and that another person killed was a settlement security guard who arrived at the scene when two Palestinian gunmen burst into their home and opened fire.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility, while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman called it a "horrendous attack" and promised an Israeli response.

Paramedic Hezi Tzuriel told Israel Radio that Israeli soldiers had entered the house to engage the infiltrators, and that one of them was wounded while storming the home.

Israel Radio said soldiers shot and killed one of the infiltrators, and another jumped out a window. Soldiers exchanged fire with him, the report said.

A neighbor, Rinat Cabra, said there were seven children in the family living in the house, and that the father was not home.

A settler, Yaacov Heiman, told Israel Radio that one of the dead was a young boy. "We heard screaming. We closed the house and then the army started to come," he said. "It's a horrible feeling."

There were reports that another victim also was a child.

Itamar, where some of the most militant Israeli settlers in the West Bank live, is not fenced in. Settlers insist the whole West Bank belongs to the Jews. On May 29, a Palestinian gunman attacked a high school at the settlement, killing three Israeli teenagers who were playing basketball.

In the claim of responsibility, the caller told The Associated Press that the attack was in response to the arrest of a PFLP leader and Israel's attempt to separate the West Bank from Israel.

Israel Radio said Sharon left a public event when he was told of the attack and convened top advisers at his Tel Aviv office.

"This is a horrendous attack, and there always has to be a response for such things," said Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin.

On Thursday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned attacks against Israeli civilians, but Palestinian officials have always differentiated between Israelis inside Israel and those who live in the West Bank, claimed by Palestinians for a state.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55833,00.html