EREZ CROSSING, Gaza, 7 March 2004 — A botched suicide bombing and shooting attack on Israeli soldiers at the main Israel-Gaza border crossing left at least six Palestinians dead yesterday.
A source in the Hamas group said it carried out the operation along with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, and Islamic Jihad.
Such cooperation among the three groups, which have ignored Palestinian Authority calls for a cease-fire with Israel, is likely to fuel US fears that Israel’s threatened unilateral pullback in Gaza could fuel anarchy in the area.
Brig. Gen. Gadi Shamni, commander of Israeli forces in northern Gaza, said the incident began when a Palestinian car exploded at the heavily guarded Erez Crossing.
Hamas called it a suicide bombing and said the driver was killed. Shamni said no Israelis were hurt.
Soon afterward, two jeeps painted in Israeli Army colors raced to the scene, as if they were responding to the blast, and a Palestinian gunman in the lead vehicle began firing at soldiers, who shot him and its driver dead, Shamni told reporters.
The second jeep, also disguised as an army vehicle, then exploded near a Palestinian police post about 100 meters away, killing the driver, the general said.
Hospital officials said at least two other Palestinians, both policemen, were killed and some 15 wounded.
“It’s possible the Palestinians (policemen) tried to stop the jeep and the driver blew himself up or something malfunctioned,” Shamni said. Palestinian security sources said Israeli forces had fired at the vehicle. Shamni denied this.
The use of fake army jeeps — Shamni said the militants had used an unarmored civilian version of the military’s “Sufa” vehicle — was a new tactic in the Palestinian uprising that began in September 2000.
The violence at the flashpoint frontier erupted three days after an Israeli missile strike killed three Hamas men in Gaza, which like the West Bank was sealed off by Israel on Thursday in a security alert for the Jewish holiday of Purim.
For thousands of Palestinian laborers Erez, in the northern Gaza Strip, is a gateway to coveted jobs in Israel and in an Israeli-run industrial zone at the crossing.
“The Palestinians, in their zeal for attacking Israelis, are actually causing a major disruption to a vital economic interest for thousands of Palestinian families,” said David Baker, an official in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office.
On Feb. 27, two gunmen from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades sneaked into Erez and killed a soldier before being shot dead by security personnel.
Earlier yesterday, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, an Israeli military source said.
Local residents said he was an unarmed policeman in uniform caught up in a confrontation between soldiers and stone-throwers. The military source said he was dressed in a camouflage uniform and armed with an assault rifle.
Israeli troops arrested a suspected armed man from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades near the headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat here, said an official from the radical group.
Mohammed Rashad Barghouti, 25, found carrying a Kalashnikov and two bombs, was arrested in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said the member of the movement.
The suspect is related to Marwan Barghouti, the arrested West Bank Fatah leader whom Israel accuses of masterminding the ongoing Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. Barghouti is standing trial on charges of murdering or abetting the killings of 26 people, as well as heading the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
— Additional input from agencies
