| GAZA CITY
-- Three people were killed Thursday in an attack on a civilian settler
convoy in Gaza that started with an explosion on the road and included
another blast that hit a tank sent to aid the settlers, Israeli security
sources said.
Salah al Din Brigade issued a pamphlet taking responsibility for the action, according to Palestinian source in Gaza. The attack took place on the road leading from the Karni border crossing to the settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, sources said. Small-arms fire was aimed at the convoy after the first explosion went off, and an army force traveling with the convoy returned fire, sources said. An even bigger explosion then went off under a tank that was sent to help, they said An unknown number of people were wounded in the attack. The Salah al Din Brigade's pamphlets said the attack was in revenge for the five Palestinian police officers killed during the recent Israel Army incursion into Palestinian towns in northern and central Gaza, a Palestinian source said. Israel said its forces swept into those towns and held them for about 24 hours in response to the firing of two Palestinian-built Qassam-2 rockets into Israel from Gaza on Sunday. A little more than a week ago, the Israeli military announced it had seized a shipment of eight Qassam-2 missiles as they were being smuggled by Palestinians between two West Bank cities. The Salah al Din Brigade is part of the national resistance committees made up of Islamic Jihad and Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah members. According to the U.S. State Department, the organization has committed at least on terror attack in the past.  |