Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis in a drive-by shooting and Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian in an eruption of violence in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.
The killings a month after Israel completed a pullout from the Gaza Strip tore at a flimsy cease-fire and raised fears of a resurgence in violence in the West Bank where Jewish settlements continue to grow on land Palestinians want for a state.
Hoped-for peacemaking momentum from the withdrawal has not transpired. A Middle East summit has been postponed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet US President George W. Bush this week to discuss how to resuscitate a "road map" peace plan.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for two drive-by ambushes on Sunday, the first of their kind in four months, outside the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the southern West Bank and Eli settlement in the centre of the territory. "A Palestinian passed by in a car, let off a burst of fire, and struck down people standing at the hitchhiking post," Shaul Goldstein, a settler leader in Gush Etzion, told Israel Radio.
Three Israelis were killed in the Gush Etzion attack and four were wounded, the Zaka rescue service and Magen David Adom ambulance service said.
Minutes later, Palestinian gunmen fired on a road junction outside Eli in the central West Bank, wounding two Israelis, one seriously, Magen David Adom said.
In the far north of the West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead an Islamic Jihad militant commander during a clash that broke out after they tried to arrest him, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli military sources said.
They said Nehad Abu Ghanem, 27, a leader of Islamic Jihad's military wing in the region, opened fire on Israeli special forces who cornered him as he was driving his car south of Jenin. Abu Ghanem, 27, was killed when Israeli troops fired back.
But the ambushes could embarrass Abbas just before his talks with Bush at the White House on Thursday. Abbas has been under US and Israeli pressure to rein in and disarm militants as a condition for "road map" negotiations on Palestinian statehood.
Senior Palestinian officials bemoaned the roadside attacks but also condemned the killing of the Jenin militant leader.
"This (ambushes) is unfortunate. It shouldn't have happened. We should work hard in order to prevent this from happening," Palestinian Planning Minister Ghassan al-Khatib said.
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