22.12.2003 BPI. Correspondents and Haaretz Service and Agencies Two Israel Defense Forces officers were killed and a Border Police officer was lightly wounded in separate attacks Monday evening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the first attack, the officers were killed by shots and a grenade fired on a jeep traveling on the Kissufim Road in the southern Gaza Strip, about one kilometer west of the Kissufim checkpoint. One officer was killed immediately, while the second suffered critical injuries and died a short time later. Channel One TV reported that one Palestinian gunman was killed in the exchange of gunfire that followed. Four Palestinians were wounded, Palestinian sources said. Reports said that the military closed the area while they searched for the attackers. Later Monday evening, a Border Police officer suffered light wounds to his shoulder in a shooting attack near the West Bank city of Hebron. The shots were fired on Route 160, leading from the Kiryat Arba settlement to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. He was being evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital for treatment, Israel Radio reported.
Responsibility for the Gaza Strip attack was claimed by two Palestinian militant groups – the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades linked to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group, and Islamic Jihad, Reuters reported. In response, David Baker, an official in the Prime Ministers Office, said, „Today’s attacks are another indication of the glaring indifference of the PA to taking any practical steps for the purpose of stopping terror attacks against Israelis.” „It is precisely this type of indifference by the PA which allows these terror attacks to continue with no effort by the Palestinians to halt them,” he added. Brigadier General Gad Shamni, commander of the Gaza corps, said that in 2003 there were 11 attacks on the Kissufim Road attacks on Kissufim Road, and that in each previous incident the Palestinian attackers were killed or apprehended without injuries to troops, Israel Radio reported. Shamni said that the Kissufim Road poses a difficult problem because many residents of the Gush Katif settlement bloc travel on it. Earlier Monday, Palestinian gunmen fired at Israel Defense Forces troops operating near the security fence surrounding the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Strip, Army Radio reported. The troops returned fire. No injuries were reported.
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