Nine Israelis, seven soldiers and three settlers, were killed and six were injured, four of them seriously, in a shooting attack Sunday morning on an Israeli roadblock north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, near the settlement of Ofra. Another Israeli soldier was killed when an explosive device was detonated near an Israeli position south of the Kissufim crossing in the Gaza Strip.
A total of 21 Israelis have been killed in four attacks in less than 24 hours, including nine people in a suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem on Saturday evening and a policeman shot dead in the West Bank on Saturday afternoon.
Israel Radio reported that a single Palestinian gunman, armed with a relatively primitive Carbine rifle, and positioned on a hilltop overlooking the Israeli roadblock near Ofra, opened fire at soldiers and Israeli cars at around 7:00 A.M. The Palestinina sniper also fired at first-aid workers when they arrived at the scene of the attack.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group linked to the Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for this attack. The group also took responsibility for the suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
Shortly after the shooting near Ofra, one Israeli soldier was killed and four injured - one moderately and three lightly - when a bomb exploded near an Israeli post south of the Kissufim crossing between Israel and Gaza.
Following Ofra attack Israeli warplanes attacked a Palestinian police position in Ramallah, Palestinian sources reported.
In addition, Israeli tanks fired at the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service headquarters in the West Bank village of Salfit. One Palestinian policeman was killed and five others were wounded, Palestinian sources reported.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a Palestinian Authority police headquarters in Bethlehem, in retaliation for the Jerusalem suicide bomb attack in the ultra-Orthodox Beit Yisrael neighborhood in Jerusalem.
(Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
