Three dead in Palestinian attack on settlement

Palestinian gunmen infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the West Bank today and killed three residents, shortly after Israel ended its latest raid on a Palestinian city in search of militants, warning that it would pursue militants wherever it must.

Police said three people of the Adora settlement were killed. The head of the ambulance service in the area said 14 wounded were evacuated to hospital.

Police spokesman Rafi Yaffe said the attackers slipped through the defences of the settlement, and their fate was unclear. Security forces were searching for them, he said.

The radio report said they may have escaped after firing on several homes in the settlement. But the army was searching house-to-house, fearing that at least one assailant may be hiding and holding hostages.

The area of Hebron was not targeted during Israel’s three-week incursion in the West Bank, which was scaled back last week when troops withdrew from the city centres of Ramallah and Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank.

Israel and the Palestinians, meanwhile, tried to find ways to resolve impasses in Ramallah and Bethlehem, where Israel has said it won’t completely withdraw its forces until wanted Palestinians in both surrender.

A UN fact-finding mission that had been expected to arrive today to investigate Palestinian accusations that Israeli forces indiscriminately killed civilians in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank town of Jenin was delayed by a day.

The United Nations agreed to the delay, saying the Jewish Sabbath meant Israel’s Cabinet could not meet until Sunday morning to formally decide whether to allow the mission - about which it has deep reservations - to visit.

Council diplomats said they were told that Israel’s UN ambassador, Yehuda Lancry, informed UN officials that the Cabinet had ‘‘informally agreed’’ to let the mission proceed.

In Bethlehem, the standoff at the Church of the Nativity entered its 25th day with the focus of negotiations to resolve it centering on the fate of six wanted Palestinians holed up inside whether they will be escorted to the Gaza Strip, as the Palestinians propose, or be sent into exile, as Israel demands.

Palestinian negotiator Salah Taameri was to meet Saturday with PLO leader Yasser Arafat to discuss the deal.

More than 200 Palestinians, including about 30 militiamen, remain inside the church compound, which is surrounded by Israeli forces.