Israel kills two militants in West Bank shootout

By Wael al-Ahmed

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli troops killed at least
two Islamic Jihad militants in a shootout in the West Bank on
Sunday, hours after the group agreed to halt rocket fire from
the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.

A week of violence has badly damaged a truce that has
lasted for almost nine months, as well as hopes that Israel’s
withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip in September could
energize peacemaking in the Middle East.

The gun battle erupted at sunset when Israeli troops
surrounded the hideout of an Islamic Jihad militant in
Qabatiya, the West Bank home town of the Jihad suicide bomber
who killed five Israelis in a marketplace on Wednesday.

Palestinian security sources said at least two gunmen were
shot dead. Militants fought troops nearby and Israeli
helicopters sent down bursts of gunfire. The army did not
comment.

The fighting in the West Bank followed a day of unusual
quiet around the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian officials said Islamic Jihad had agreed to halt
cross-border rocket attacks and renew its “commitment to calm”
as long as there were no Israeli raids. Israel had decided to
stop air strikes launched in response to the rockets, they
said.

Islamic Jihad stopped short of saying it would resume
rocket attacks in response to the killings in the West Bank,
but said it “reserved the right” to respond to Israeli attacks.

“The enemy is not serious about calm,” said spokesman
Khader Habib in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials said that, if rocket fire from Gaza
stopped, then raids there would stop too, but that operations
against Islamic Jihad would continue following the suicide
bombing in the city of Hadera.

“There is an intent to continue it until they cannot carry
out any more suicide bombings,” Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz
told Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s cabinet.

POLITICAL TESTS

Sharon cannot afford to look weak ahead of looming
parliamentary tests in which he is challenged by far rightists
who argued that his withdrawal from Gaza would reward militants
and encourage violence.

The prime minister struggled on Sunday to win support for
new cabinet nominations to be put to parliament on Monday. He
is also expected to face a series of confidence votes.

Islamic Jihad began the latest round of rocket fire from
Gaza and carried out the suicide attack following Israel’s
killing of one of its top commanders in the West Bank a week
ago. Air strikes killed nine Palestinians, most of them
militants, since Thursday.

Islamic Jihad, dedicated to Israel’s destruction, did not
say that it would halt suicide bombings alongside the new
commitment to halt rocket fire.

The United States had appealed to Israel for caution in its
assaults on militants, while also urging Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas to take action to rein in the armed groups waging
an uprising since 2000.

Palestinians are meant to start disarming the factions
under a U.S.-backed “road map,” but Abbas has said that to use
force could risk civil war. Israel has not met its own road map
commitment to freeze West Bank settlement building.

Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Youssef said on
Saturday his forces would confiscate guns on the streets and
“deal firmly” with workshops making weapons or explosives.
There was no immediate sign of action.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)