Israelis blow up homes of dead gunmen
The gunmen, cousins from a West Bank village, were members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, two more gunmen dispatched by the militant Islamic Hamas movement opened fire yesterday in the Jewish settlement of Dolah, wounding two Thai workers and an Israeli. One gunman was killed.
The Palestinian Authority condemned Thursday's shooting rampage at the Likud branch office in the northern Israeli town of Beit Shean, and said Fatah was not involved in any way in the attack.
"Such operations do not serve the Palestinian people's cause," it said in a statement. "On the contrary, they harm our cause."
A poll published on Thursday found a majority of Palestinians want their security forces to crack down on militants attacking Israel a shift that coincides with unprecedented criticism from Arafat's deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, of two years of violence against Israel.
The two developments indicate Palestinians are souring on their uprising, called "intefadeh" in Arabic, after the death of almost 2,000 Palestinians and 700 Israelis in clashes, military operations and terror attacks.
The poll, by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, indicated Palestinians still strongly favour attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza lands claimed by the Palestinians for their own state but 56% favour steps by the Palestinian Authority to stop attacks in Israel.
As recently as May, a similar poll showed 86% of Palestinians oppose arresting Palestinian militants involved in suicide bombings inside Israel.
The new poll questioned 1,319 people between November 14-22.
Yesterday Israeli troops blew up the West Bank homes of the Beit Shean gunmen Omar and Yousef Abu Rub, both in their 20s, who were killed in Thursday's attack.
Eighteen people were left homeless by the demolitions.
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