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Settler kills three palestinians during pullout Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://olympics.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-17T171046Z_01_SCH750993_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MIDEAST-SHOOTING-DC.XMLhttp://olympics.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-08-17T171046Z_01_SCH750993_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MIDEAST-SHOOTING-DC.XML
Settler kills 3 Palestinians, rattling Gaza pullout
Wed Aug 17, 2005 1:11 PM ET
By Wafa Amr
SHILOH, West Bank (Reuters) - A Jewish settler shot dead three Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday, drawing a threat of retaliation from Palestinian militants which could complicate Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip.
Israeli police said the assailant was a driver who had taken Palestinian workers to jobs in Shiloh, a Jewish West Bank settlement. Once there, he snatched a security guard's gun and turned it on his passengers. Police later arrested him.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the attack a "Jewish terror act." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas branded it "a terrorist incident." Both leaders said it aimed to disrupt Israel's pullout from Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Medical officials said that after shooting dead two Palestinians in his car, the settler fired at others in the industrial zone, killing another Palestinian and wounding two.
One of the dead Palestinians was seen slumped in the back of the attacker's vehicle, while another lay beside it.
The shooting occurred hours after Israeli forces began removing settlers and their supporters from several Gaza settlements as part of a pullout which Israeli opponents see as capitulation to a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000.
ABBAS APPEAL
Abbas appealed to Palestinians not to retaliate.
He urged Palestinian gunmen not to respond to "provocations and not to provide any pretexts or excuses to those wishing to halt the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza."
Palestinian militants have threatened to renew attacks that they have scaled back in recent months at the request of Abbas, who seeks a smooth handover of Gaza.
"By freeing the hand of settlers to shed Palestinian blood, the enemy is opening the door for resistance factions to respond to these Zionist crimes which take place during the calm," a spokesman for the Islamic militant group Hamas said.
The Islamic Jihad group issued a similar statement but said any retaliatory attacks would take place in the West Bank or Israel, but not in Gaza.
Sharon, who casts the pullout from Gaza and a corner of the West Bank as "disengagement" from 4 1/2 years of fighting with the Palestinians, has said there will be no withdrawal under militant fire.
Nearly two weeks ago an ultranationalist Jew opposed to the Gaza withdrawal shot dead four Israeli Arabs aboard a bus in northern Israel. The gunman, who was beaten to death by an angry mob, had deserted from the Israeli army and taken up residence in a West Bank settlement.
Some 230,000 Jews live in settlements scattered among the 2.4 million Palestinians of the West Bank. Israel is removing 8,500 settlers from Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians. Israel occupied both territories in the 1967 Middle East war.
(Additional reporting by Corinne Heller and Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mohammed Assadi in Gaza)
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