Bombers die before five shot dead in kibbutz raid

JERUSALEM - A suspected Palestinian gunman has killed at least five people in a kibbutz in northern Israel, hours after a double suicide bombing was foiled in the same area near the West Bank border.

Israeli security forces were yesterday still pursuing the gunman, who was feared to be holed up inside a house in Kibbutz Metzer, a collective farm.

The attack came after Israeli troops had pulled back from the West Bank city of Jenin following a two-week hunt for suicide bombers ahead of the arrival of a United States envoy to pursue a Middle East peace plan.

At least five people were killed in the kibbutz, said police sources and medics.

"We are all closed up in our houses," resident Oded Shahar told Israeli television.

"We heard the shots and turned off the lights and shut the doors."

In the earlier suicide bombing, police had erected a checkpoint near Metzer after receiving information of a potential attack being launched from the Palestinian city of Nablus.

Two Palestinians inside a car apparently blew themselves up after border police spotted a suspicious-looking vehicle and asked the driver to pull over, police said.

Israeli media said one of the men was wearing an explosives belt, while the second detonated a booby-trapped bag.

"Once again the bloody hand of Palestinian terror has lashed out at Israeli civilians, this time in their own homes," David Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, said of the Metzer attack.

Meanwhile in Gaza City yesterday, rockets from an Israeli military helicopter destroyed a metal foundry believed to be making mortar bombs, said military sources.

No injuries were reported.

At least 1653 Palestinians and 626 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000 after peace talks froze.

US Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield was due in the region this week to promote a "roadmap" to peace and Palestinian reforms that Washington has demanded as a prelude to statehood.

The peace proposal, part of efforts by US, European Union, UN and Russian mediators, has drawn reservations from Palestinian officials and Israeli Cabinet ministers.

The proposal calls for an end to armed Palestinian attacks, withdrawal of the Israeli Army from reoccupied Palestinian cities, talks towards a final peace settlement, and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005.

Palestinian ministers said the plan should define a stricter schedule, clearly call for an end to new Jewish settlements on occupied land and send monitors to the region.

Sharon choked off criticism of the plan in his right-wing Government, refusing to allow a debate on the subject during Sunday's Cabinet meeting, apparently to avoid a clash with the US before a possible war against Iraq.

- REUTERS

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