Palestinian Fighters Kill Five Israeli Settlers

Two Palestinian fighters disguised as shepherds ambushed two cars of Israeli settlers near the Kissufim road, which leads to the major Gush Katif settlement bloc, witnesses told IslamOnline.net.

The Palestinian resistance groups Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed the attack.

Earlier, media outlets said the operation was claimed Hamas’ armed wing Ezzudin Al-Qassam Brigades, which later denied responsibility, but praised the "heroic operation".

An Israeli occupation spokesman said the dead were a woman and four children, adding that the operation seriously injured a fifth settler.

Witnesses said that Israeli occupation troops gunned down the two fighters, adding that one of them detonated an explosive device against occupation troops, injuring three soldiers.

The Palestinian resistance groups see as a legitimate right attacking Israeli soldiers and settlers on their occupied lands in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The latest deaths bring to 3,958 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation in September 2000, including 2,983 Palestinians and 905 Israelis.

Revenge
A military leader of the Popular Resistance Committees said the operation came in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdelaziz Rantissi.

"This operation is the first in a sires and we tell [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon that victory will be ours and you will never bring us to our kneels. This is only the tip of an iceberg," Abu Sherif, a leader of the Committees’ armed wing Saladin Brigades, told IOL.

He said the brigades will distribute video tapes including the will of the two fighters, whose names were withheld for the time being for security reasons.

An Israeli strike helicopter fired three missiles at the 67-year-old wheelchair-bound Sheikh Yassin after performing the dawn prayers in a mosque near his home on March 22, killing him and at least eight others.

Twenty-six days later, Rantissi was assassinated in an Israeli air strike that also killed at least two other Palestinians.

Sharon’s Plan

The attack took place as Sharon’s Likud party members were voting on his controversial disengagement plan which sees the evacuation of all 21 Gaza Strip settlements.

Ashraf Ajrami, a Palestinian political analyst, told IOL that the operation would not undermine the disengagement plan, which is seen by the Palestinians as a ruse to seize more lands in the West Bank.

But an Israeli government spokesman, however, argued that the operation is aimed at derailing the plan, which was endorsed by U.S. President George W. Bush on April 14.

"It may have an impact on the voting, but it’s difficult to say in which way," Avi Pazner told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Polling stations across Israel for the 193,000 members of Likud voting are scheduled to be open until 10:00 pm (1900 GMT).

Fresh polls published in the Israeli press suggest Sharon’s plan was set to be rejected by his fellowmen.

In a poll published in the mass-circulation daily Yediot Aharonot, 47 of the respondents said they were against the plan and 44 percent in favor.

In another new poll in the Maariv daily, 49 percent said they would vote down the plan and 41 percent said they would support it.

Three key ministers of Sharon’s cabinet have already spurned the controversial unilateral plan, which came as a setback for the hawkish premier.