Palestinian gunmen kill two Israelis

Posted 9:47AM on Sunday 10th February 2002 ( 23 years ago )

BEERSHEBA, ISRAEL - A pair of Palestinian gunmen opened fire Sunday on the street outside a large Israeli military base in the southern city of Beersheba, killing two women and hitting at least four other people before they were shot dead. The gunmen sprang from a car and started shooting with automatic weapons near the gates of the army's southern command headquarters in the center of the city, police said. Many soldiers were on the streets during their lunch break Sunday afternoon, and quickly began firing back at the attackers, who were shot dead within minutes, witnesses and officials said. The six people shot by the attackers included soldiers and civilians, and two of them died shortly thereafter, according to police and the Israeli media. ``I was on the street and suddenly the two got out of a car and started firing in all directions,'' Israeli army Capt. Guy Shaham told Israel Radio. ``They were spraying from the hip in all directions.'' ``I whipped out my gun and started firing back at them,'' Shaham said, adding that he felled one of the attackers. The second ran toward a shopping center, but soldiers chased him down and killed him as well, Shaham said. Israel TV said the area had been closed off and a search was on for a third Palestinian who may have been involved in the attack, disguised in the uniform of an Israeli soldier. But Shaham said he was sure there were only two attackers. The television station also reported that one of the dead assailants was believed to have explosives strapped to his body and was killed before he had a chance to detonate them. It said the army was trying to defuse the bomb. There was no confirmation of the report. Palestinian militants have carried out scores of attacks in 16 months of fighting. The desert city of Beersheba has been comparatively calm, but it is relatively close to both the West Bank and Gaza. Sunday's attack underscored the vulnerability of such Israeli cities in the current conflict. The main Palestinian cities are blockaded by the army, but there is little serious policing of the Israel-West Bank border itself, which snakes through hundreds of miles of hills, plains, woods and desert. ``We do not know how to hermetically seal the borders of Israel,'' said Israeli police chief Shlomo Aharonishki, asked whether such attacks can be prevented. Earlier Sunday, Israeli troops briefly entered the West Bank city of Nablus and exchanged heavy fire with Palestinians. The incursion came hours after a Saturday night roadside shooting by a Palestinian killed a 79-year-old Israeli woman and injured her son. The soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers moved into Nablus around 4 a.m., and gunbattles soon erupted. Seven Palestinians were wounded, two seriously, Palestinian hospital officials said. An Israeli attack helicopter circled overhead but did not open fire during the incursion, which lasted about two hours. The Israeli military said its forces searched buildings, arresting several Palestinians, and left the city before daybreak. The Israeli troops also took up positions around the Askar refugee camp in the city but did not go in, witnesses said. Tanks broke through the doors of two nearby metal workshops and soldiers searched them, Palestinian witnesses said. The workshops belong to a man who is close to the militant Hamas group, Palestinian sources said. Hamas announced recently that it had succeeded in manufacturing ground-to-ground rockets and showed them in a video made available to the media. Last week, Israeli soldiers seized some of the rockets, which were hidden under a load of vegetables on a Palestinian truck. Later Sunday, one explosive round was fired from the Gaza Strip onto a communal farm in southern Israel. The Israeli military was trying to determine if it was a mortar or rocket. No one was injured. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have repeatedly fired mortars at Israeli communities in and around Gaza, though these attacks have rarely caused serious damage or injuries. However, Israel's security forces have warned that if the Palestinians were to begin firing rockets, which are far more powerful and have a much longer range, the threat would be much greater. Israeli officials have said Israel would respond to rocket fire with harsher actions than it has taken to date.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/2/203097