MIDDLE EAST: Three Palestinian gunmen breached defences around an Israeli settlement in Gaza and killed three soldiers before being shot dead yesterday, exacting the worst toll on Israel's forces in occupied territory in four months.
Troops killed two of the Palestinian militants in a gunfight just after dawn on the fringes of the isolated Morag settlement, and the third after cornering him hours later in its greenhouse area. Israeli Army Radio carried live audio of gunfire.
The attack at Morag, one of 21 Jewish enclaves in the Gaza Strip to be vacated in 2005 under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from conflict with Palestinians, came a day after a woman suicide-bomber killed two policemen in Jerusalem.
Polls show most Israelis favour Mr Sharon's drive to quit Gaza and part of the West Bank. But fresh assaults by militants eager to say they drove out the Israelis may boost rebels in his right-wing coalition who oppose pullouts as "a reward to terrorism".
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a militant umbrella group, said the gunmen sneaked up to Morag's defence line and killed three soldiers.
It said two militants were killed by return fire. The third survived the initial firefight and contacted his commander with his mobile phone to provide details, a PRC spokesman said.
The army confirmed the deaths of the soldiers.
A fourth soldier was lightly wounded, while an Israeli journalist arriving for an early army briefing on the incident was shot in the leg by the third gunman on the loose. "The bottom line is that terrorists managed to penetrate our (Morag) outpost and kill soldiers there. They did not get further than that ... (But) this was an effective combined attack. We are investigating," Lieut-Col Dotan Razili, deputy commander of Israel's Gaza battalion, told Reuters.
The PRC took responsibility for the assault along with Islamic Jihad and the Abu Rish Brigades, an armed group inside Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
"The attack could have been more successful and deadly but we are happy with the results. Our martyrs go to paradise and their dead go to hell," said Abu Ahmed, a senior Fatah militant.
It was the military's heaviest single-day loss since May, when 11 soldiers were killed in ambushes on troop carriers, one in Gaza City and another in Rafah refugee camp, south of Morag.
Later yesterday, Gaza militants fired three crude rockets into the nearby Israeli town of Sderot. One woman suffered light shrapnel wounds in the latest of many such attacks.
The army said soldiers also blew up an abandoned Palestinian house near the settlement of Netzarim in central Gaza that had been used as a launchpad for previous militant ambushes.
The Jerusalem and Morag attacks reignited debate between proponents and opponents of Mr Sharon's withdrawal plan.
"It is clear now that in surrendering to terror, Sharon is risking the soldiers and settlers nationwide. He should resign," said Aryeh Eldad, a far-rightist National Union legislator. - (Reuters)