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Militants kill four israeli troops { June 8 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2894567http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2894567
Militants Kill Four Israeli Troops, Defying Abbas
Sun June 8, 2003 07:45 AM ET
By Shahdi al-Kashif
GAZA (Reuters) - Three Palestinian militant groups banded together for a rare joint attack that killed four Israeli soldiers Sunday, in defiance of peace pledges Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas made at a Middle East summit.
Three gunmen from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades disguised themselves as Israeli soldiers before attacking an army post near the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the military said. All three Palestinians were shot dead in the gunbattle.
The assault was another slap in the face by Palestinian hard-liners to Abbas and his efforts to make good on a promise to demilitarize the 32-month-old uprising for statehood, threatening to strangle the latest peace moves almost at birth.
The militants oppose the decisions taken at landmark summits which President Bush held in Aqaba, Jordan on Wednesday with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and with Arab leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt a day earlier.
Participants at the two gatherings endorsed a U.S.-backed "road map" for Israeli-Palestinian peace which calls for an end to violence and the start of reciprocal confidence-building steps leading to the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005.
Abbas called at the Aqaba summit for attacks on Israelis to cease. The plea was rejected by militant groups which announced they were ending truce talks the reformist prime minister had initiated before the meeting.
"Today, the blood of Palestinians says that we are unified in the trench of resistance," said Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a Hamas leader. "The war against terrorism of Israelis will continue as long as there is occupation."
ABBAS SEEKS RENEWAL OF DIALOGUE
Abbas responded by appealing for a resumption of cease-fire talks. He said he wanted to avoid armed confrontation with militant groups, whose disarming is mandated by the road map.
"Perhaps the Aqaba statement was misunderstood. We think that the dialogue is the only way to achieve our goal. Through this dialogue, we want to achieve calm, not civil war," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Sunday's Gaza attack was the first deadly assault by militants against Israelis since the Aqaba summit. Major-General Doron Almog, chief of Israel's southern command, called the cooperation among the three groups "unusual."
The disguised gunmen walked toward the army post down a road veiled by heavy early morning fog and filled with Palestinian laborers heading into a nearby Israeli-run industrial zone and into Israel.
The military said three Israeli reservists and a regular army soldier were killed in the raid.
A video tape released by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades showed three men identified as the attackers seated at a table on which hand grenades, assault rifles and a Koran had been placed.
"We swear to God and the people that our resistance, our 'Jihad', will continue until the end of occupation," said one of the three, named as Musa Sahweil of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades linked to President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, urged Abbas to take immediate action to rein in militants.
"We are expecting now that the Palestinian Authority will make a 100 percent effort in order to curb terrorism ... because everyone must understand the continuation of terrorism precludes the progress in the peace process," Pazner said.
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