Palestinians disguised as Israeli soldiers ambushed a bus carrying Jewish settlers on Tuesday, setting off a roadside bomb and then spraying gunfire at passengers trapped in the vehicle, killing seven.
The West Bank attack, claimed separately by three Palestinian militant groups, was launched before officials from the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia held talks on the Middle East which ended in disagreement over the future of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The ambush was a slap in the face to the Israeli army, which has been reoccupying seven of the eight Palestinian cities in the West Bank for nearly a month, with the declared aim of stopping suicide bombers from reaching Israel.
But Israeli political sources said it was unlikely Israeli retaliation would include any move to exile Arafat, whose Palestinian Authority condemned the attack.
Witnesses said three gunmen posing as Israeli soldiers set off a roadside bomb, bringing the armored bus to a halt near the entrance to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement of Emmanuel.
"I was sitting next to the back door," Uriel Lutbach, 18, told Israel Radio. "We heard an explosion and there was a lot of smoke...Gunfire began. Everyone screamed and chanted psalms. The gunfire lasted for 10 to 15 minutes."
He said passengers tried to flee but the bus's doors jammed, trapping them inside as bullets flew.
"We busted in the door to the bus. It was a shocking scene. Women and children were lying on the floor, bleeding and screaming for help," said Yitzhak Kaufman, a paramedic.
The entire right side of the bus was pockmarked by bullets.
HEAVY TOLL
Police said seven people were killed -- including three members of one family -- and at least 20 wounded in the attack, at the same spot where Palestinian gunmen killed 10 people in a bus ambush last December.
A pregnant woman was wounded in Tuesday's violence and later gave birth in hospital by Caesarean section. Doctors said both mother and baby were in critical condition. Israeli troops launched a manhunt for the attackers.
Three Palestinian militant groups, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- a spinoff of Arafat's Fatah faction -- the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas issued claims of responsibility.
Hamas's Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades said its men planted several roadside bombs at the entrance to Emmanuel and then threw hand grenades and "showered the bus with Qassam bullets."
"No one will take you seriously anymore," Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israel's Channel One television, referring to the Palestinian people and hopes for a homeland which he said were being held hostage by a militant minority.
David Baker, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, said the Palestinian Authority was responsible for a "continuous barrage of murder."
But the Palestinian Authority said in a statement it "condemns the attack in accordance with its policies that reject targeting civilians, Israelis or Palestinians."
Its comments were a departure from its usual policy of not speaking out against strikes on Israelis on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and which Palestinians want for a future state.
CIRCLE OF VIOLENCE
Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath said Israel's occupation of much of the West Bank, where 700,000 Palestinians are under curfew, was perpetuating "this circle of continuous violence."
The United States and its partners in coordinating Middle East policy disagreed publicly on Arafat's future and on whether security is a precondition for progress on other aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met for the first time since Washington switched its Middle East policy last month.
"We all have our respective positions. The U.N. still recognizes Chairman Arafat and we will continue to deal with him until the Palestinians decide otherwise," Annan told a news conference after the meeting in New York.
The United States had said it wanted to "advance the vision" of President Bush, who advocated on June 24 a Palestinian state alongside Israel once the Palestinians change their leadership and prevent what he called terrorism.
The "quartet" did agree a U.S.-led team would go to the Palestinian territories within two weeks to help the Palestinian Authority reorganize its security forces, Solana said.
At least 1,445 Palestinians and 556 Israelis have been killed since Palestinians rose up in September 2000 after the U.S.-brokered negotiations on Palestinian statehood stalled.
(China Daily July 17, 2002)
