Palestinians shoot dead rabbi in reprisal for 15 dead

PALESTINIANS shot dead a rabbi from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Thursday in what militants called the first response to an Israeli air strike that killed 15 Palestinians, including a top militant.

Two Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for killing Rabbi Elimelech Shapira, 43, and wounding another man in an ambush as they drove along a road near a Jewish settlement close to the West Bank city of Qalqilya.

“The operation is part of the armed struggle and in response to the assassination of our people in Gaza and (Hamas militant) Salah Shehada,” the Popular Army Front-Return Battalions, a coalition of militant groups, said in a statement.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group which is part of the coalition and which has links to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, also took responsibility for the ambush, which heightened fears of a fierce new round of violence.

The Islamic group Hamas has vowed to kill hundreds of Israelis to avenge Tuesday’s attack by an F-16 warplane which fired a one-ton guided missile at the house of Shehada, commander of Hamas’s military wing, killing him and 14 others.

Nine children were among the dead, most of them in buildings near Shehada’s home, and 145 people were injured in an assault which was criticised in Israel and abroad.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israelis and Palestinians alike must brace for more violence following the air strike, in which he said Israel had made mistakes.

“I know that this is a serious escalation and I am really afraid that innocent people on both sides will pay a high price,” Peres told Israel's Army Radio.

Palestinian witnesses said troops arrested four Palestinians in Qalqilya after the West Bank ambush, including a militant leader, and that an army bulldozer demolished the house where he was found.

Hospital sources also said 10 Palestinians were hurt by an explosion between a minibus and a taxi in the West Bank city of Jenin.

They said the blast may have been caused by a landmine planted by Palestinians as a defence against Israeli forces.

At least 1,467 Palestinians and 560 Israelis have been killed since Palestinians began an uprising after peace talks stalled in September 2000. Israel reoccupied West Bank cities last month in response to suicide bombings.

Israel has rarely been confronted with as much criticism in the 22 months of conflict as it has over Tuesday’s air strike. It faced more during a late-night emergency debate in the United Nations Security Council.