Army enters West Bank after militant kills guards

A PALESTINIAN militant shot and killed two Israeli security guards early yesterday at a factory along the divide between Israel and the West Bank, the military said.

Medics pronounced the two middle-aged guards dead at the scene, rescue services said. Troops began combing surrounding areas for traces of the assailant.

Palestinian security officials in the nearby town of Tulkarem said soldiers moved into the West Bank in force after the attack and set up a checkpoint.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki condemned the attack, saying it was meant “to undermine the efforts by the Palestinian government to undertake full security responsibilities in the West Bank”.

The attack was also meant to embarrass Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, while he is in Washington for meetings with US officials, al-Malki said.

A violent offshoot of Abbas’s Fatah movement claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to a Palestinian news agency.

However, Hamas and Islamic Jihad told AP news agency that they had carried out the attack jointly.

The military said the gunman approached the two guards while they were screening workers entering the small industrial zone of Nitzanei Shalom, opened fire and then escaped.