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Israel kills two militants in West Bank shootout

Posted on: Sunday, 30 October 2005, 15:02 CST

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)

Source: REUTERS

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