Israeli soldier, gunman killed in West Bank raids

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian gunmen shot dead an
Israeli soldier on a raid and Israel killed a militant in a
separate incident in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

Two mortar bombs fired from the Gaza Strip slammed into an
Israeli farm community, injuring a civilian, the army said. A
rescue service and a television station said power was cut when
one of the mortar rounds struck a high tension wire.

Palestinians have fired mortars and rockets in response to
Israeli air raids in the past week, but none before Wednesday
had caused any damage or injury.

Israel has vowed to respond harshly to such attacks. The
Hamas militant group has said Israel’s targeting of militants
would kill chances of renewing a truce.

The soldier’s death followed militant vows for revenge
after Israel killed two militant leaders in Gaza on Tuesday and
was Israel’s first military fatality in action since Israel
withdrew from the coastal strip after 38 years of occupation.

An army spokesman said the soldier, on an operation to
arrest militants near the West Bank city of Jenin, was killed
by gunmen as the Israeli force was leaving the area.

Hours later, Israeli soldiers exchanged fire with gunmen in
a separate raid near Jenin, critically wounding a militant of
the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of the ruling Fatah
movement. He died later in hospital, medics said.

The Israeli army said soldiers had shot three gunmen who
had opened fire on them during a raid.

After the West Bank firefight, the two mortars from Gaza
struck the Netiv Haasara community in southern Israel, causing
the power blackout and one person was treated for an injury.

Militants of the al-Aqsa Brigades in Gaza claimed
responsibility, saying they had fired two rockets named after a
militant leader killed in an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.

NO LET-UP

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said there would be
no let-up in raids and strikes against militant targets in Gaza
as long as the Palestinian Authority did not rein in gunmen.

“If Abu Mazen takes the strategic decision which he still
refuses to take and acts against the infrastructure of terror
… (our activity) in Gaza will end the same day,” Shalom,
referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told Israel
Radio.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of
waging a “smear campaign aimed at continuing unilateral moves
and dictation on the ground, rather than negotiations.”

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said Israel’s
targeting of militants would kill chances of renewing a truce
due to expire at year’s end.

“The enemy is not abiding by any of its commitments,” Masri
said as 15,000 Palestinians attended the funerals of two
militant commanders killed in an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.

“It remains a one-sided calm, and it was supposed to be
reciprocal. As a result, no one should dream another calm is
coming,” said Masri, whose group seeks Israel’s destruction.

Armed Palestinian groups agreed to a “period of calm” until
the end of the year after Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon declared a truce in February.

But more than a week of bloodshed, the worst flareup since
the ceasefire was agreed, has hit hopes the truce would last
and that Israel’s Gaza pullout in September would revive
peacemaking after more than five years of violence.

Abbas, who has urged Israel to resume peace negotiations,
has resisted U.S. and Israeli calls to disarm gunmen, citing
fears of civil war.

Israel has said talks cannot restart until Abbas acts
against militants in accordance with a U.S.-backed peace “road
map,” whose terms it also has not met fully.

Palestinian militant groups vowed to “open the gates of
hell” to avenge Tuesday’s killings of an al-Aqsa commander and
a leader of Hamas’s armed wing.

Israel has killed 13 Palestinians, mostly gunmen in raids
since an October 26 suicide bombing killed five Israelis in a
market in central Israel. Islamic Jihad said that bombing was
to avenge Israel’s killing of one of its West Bank commanders.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Wafa
Amr in Ramallah and Corinne Heller and Allyn Fisher-Ilan in
Jerusalem)