Palestinian gunmen attack Jewish settlement

Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire today in a Jewish settlement, wounding two Thai workers and an Israeli, radio reports said.

One of the workers was in a serious condition. The attackers escaped.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the Dolah settlement, part of the Gush Katif bloc of settlements in southern Gaza.

In the past 26 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, Palestinian militants have frequently attacked Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Elsewhere, Israeli troops blew up the homes of two Palestinian gunmen who attacked an office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud Party as people voted in yesterday’s leadership election.

Six Israelis were killed by the gunmen and more than 20 were injured.

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.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the rampage at the 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. “On the contrary, they harm our cause.”

In today’s house demolitions, Israeli troops entered the West Bank village of Jalboun before dawn and blew up the homes of the Beit Shean gunmen Omar and Yousef Abu Rub, both in their 20s, who were killed in yesterday’s attack.

Eighteen people were made homeless by the demolitions.

The Al Aqsa militia said in a statement it attacked the Likud branch in Beit Shean to avenge the deaths of two militia leaders in an explosion in the Jenin refugee camp earlier in the week. The militia blamed Israel for the blast, but Israel has denied any involvement.