Six killed in latest round of Mideast bloodshed

THREE Palestinian gunmen, an Israeli officer and two Israeli civilians were killed yesterday in bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that included shootouts at a border freight terminal and a militant hideout.

The surge in violence cast a new shadow on US efforts to press ahead with a peacemaking “road map” that calls for end to Israeli-Palestinian fighting and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

In what the militant Islamic group Hamas called revenge for Israel’s killing of one of its top commanders, a gunman hurled hand grenades and sprayed automatic weapons fire in the Karni terminal where goods move between Israel and the Gaza Strip.