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Four Israelis killed in West Bank shooting

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 31 August 2010

As Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip claim responsibility for a Hebron shooting which kills four Israelis, Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman says the attack may put in doubt scaling back of Israeli troops in the West Bank.

Four Israelis killed in Hebron, West Bank (AFP/Getty)

Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip issued a statement on Tuesday claiming responsibility for a shooting attack that killed four Israelis in the occupied West Bank on the eve of peace talks in Washington.

The statement from the armed wing of Hamas, a group that opposes any dialogue with the Jewish state, said the "Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron."

The drive-by shooting came hours before the US sponsored Middle East summit is due to begin.

The two men and two women, one of whom was pregnant, were shot on a busy road in the dark, near the West Bank city of Hebron.

The Israeli army said the highway was used by Israeli settlers and Palestinians.

The attack happened on the eve of the resumption after 20 months of direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials in Washington. The United States urged all sides from refrain from taking action that could disrupt the long-awaited talks.

'The killings underscore the lack of optimism on both sides'
The significance of this attack is that it comes on the eve of the first direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in almost two years, writes Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Rugman.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas meet for dinner at the White House in Washington with Barack Obama on Wednesday night.
 
Though right-wing Israeli MPs are calling for Netanyahu to freeze these new negotiations before they have even begun, others in the Prime Minister's coalition are saying that to walk away would be to give Palestinian militants what they want.    

Tonight's killings demonstrate the need for a lasting peace, 17 years on from the Oslo accords; but they also underscore the lack of optimism on both sides.

The four Israeli dead were from Beit Haggai, a settlement of some 95 families near the town of Hebron. The kind of place the Palestinians fear there will be more of when Nentanyahu's moratorium on settlements expires on 26 September.

An extension of this moratorium is top of the Palestinian agenda in Washington. For the Israelis, tonight's attack demonstrates their number one concern - security. The Palestinian security chief in the West Bank was recently quoted as saying he had the area under control, and western diplomats have been arguing that the Israeli force of 10,000 troops should be scaled back.

But after tonight, what likelihood of that?

The Israeli army said it did not know how many shots were fired, and said it was still hunting those responsible. 

"This was a terrorist attack and the army is treating it as a grave incident," Lt-Colonel Avital Leibovitch told reporters in a telephone briefing.

"Security was stable for the past few years and we hope this will not cause any deterioration," Leibovitch said.

An Israeli minister also said he hoped the attack would not derail the talks.

Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was travelling to Washington when the attack happened, said it was a shocking incident but should not halt diplomacy.

"It is very regrettable, how not for the first time, against the background of diplomatic talks aiming to advance peace, the nearly automatic response of Palestinians was a terrorist attack on civilians," Saar said.

However the shooting was praised by the Islamist Hamas movement, which runs the Gaza Strip and opposes the direct peace talks.

"Hamas praises the attack and regards it as a natural response to the crimes of the occupation," said Sami Abu-Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.

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