Israeli settlers shot dead in West Bank

Two Israeli settlers were murdered as they took a walk in the West Bank today, sparking fears their deaths may have been a revenge attack by Palestinian extremists.

The killings followed an Israeli operation overnight in which troops killed a bodyguard for the Palestinians' chief negotiator.

The two Israeli settlers, both in their 20s, were killed as they walked along a riverbed near the Palestinian city of Hebron.

No Palestinian militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a night-time raid in the West Bank, Israeli forces shot and killed a bodyguard for Ahmed Qureia, the chief Palestinian negotiator in peace talks only recently relaunched after a gap of seven years.

Israel has been limiting its operations in the West Bank, ruled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as it negotiates a peace agreement with Abbas's moderate government.

But late yesterday the Israeli military sent a team into a suburb of Ramallah, the seat of Mr Abbas' government, to arrest one of Mr Qureia's bodyguards, a member of the Palestinian security forces who the military said was implicated in armed activity against Israel and had provided weapons to other militants.

He opened fire at troops and they fired back, killing him, the military said.

Palestinian security officials denied the 23-year-old bodyguard fired at troops.

Mr Qureia, a former Palestinian prime minister, condemned the operation. Israel is trying to hinder progress in talks "by doing the opposite of its commitments and pledges to the international community, the most dangerous of which is the continuous assassinations of Palestinian fighters", he said.

The raid went ahead despite Israel's decision to largely stop pursuing members of Mr Abbas' Fatah movement, which Israel is seeking to strengthen against its rivals, the Islamic militants of Hamas.