Settlement guard murdered day after baby’s death

An Israeli was killed at a West Bank settlement today in an attack security forces blamed on Palestinians as the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of escalating the conflict with the killing of a Palestinian baby.

The Israeli was shot several times and stabbed as he guarded orchards at the Itamar settlement where he lived, police said.

Discarded rifle cartridges were found on the ground near the body, they told Israel radio.

Security forces sealed off the area and conducted searches for the attackers, whose footprints lead to a nearby Palestinian village.

The murder came the day after a four-month-old Palestinian baby girl was killed when Israeli shells landed in the yard of her home in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said the strike came in response to mortar shelling from the area on Jewish settlements.

Yesterday the Israeli navy announced that it had captured a fishing boat bound for the Gaza Strip with a large quantity of arms and ammunition meant for the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian leadership denied any involvement in the weapons’ smuggling.

The Palestinian baby, Iman Hijo, was killed when a piece of shrapnel hit her in the back. She became the youngest person killed in the seven months of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

Hijo’s mother, grandmother and three more children belonging to the extended family were all seriously injured by shrapnel when a shell crashed near their home, a relative said.

Women relatives of the baby wept, wailed and cursed Israeli premier Ariel Sharon as they waited outside the operating room at the Nasser Hospital where surgeons operated on several members of the Hijo family.