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Israeli soldiers drive a mobile artillery unit as the sun sets over the central Gaza Strip - Source: Reuters -
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Israeli soldiers killed six Palestinians on Saturday in the
occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the bloodiest violent
outbreak in months.
Three of those killed belonged to a militant group within the
Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement
Israel accused of perpetrating a roadside shooting that killed a
Jewish settler two days earlier.
An official in Abbas's government accused Israel of a "grave
escalation". A militant leader threatened revenge, charging Israel
would now "open the gates of hell."
Israeli armoured vehicles entered the West Bank city of Nablus
before dawn, when soldiers surrounded homes where members of the
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group of Abbas's Fatah group,
were inside.
The troops shot dead three militants suspected of killing the
settler who ignored orders to surrender, spokesman Major Peter
Lerner said.
The militants had not shot at the troops but soldiers had acted
assuming each was "armed and dangerous," Lerner said.
One of the dead was found holding a gun and the wife of another had
been wounded in the leg.
In Gaza, soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians near a border
fence they suspected of trying to infiltrate from the Hamas-ruled
territory. A Hamas security source said the three were shot as they
collected scrap metal.
The violent upsurge threatened to derail Western-backed security
cooperation forged between Abbas's police force and Israel, and
potentially tip a Palestinian power struggle against his Fatah
movement, in Islamist Hamas's favour.
It also pointed up the risks of stalled U.S.-backed peace talks,
frozen since a three-week Gaza war whose first year anniversary
falls on Monday, December 27 and in which 1,400 Palestinians and 13
Israelis were killed.
'Blood and fire'
Some Palestinians protested that Israel had not asked Abbas's
forces to arrest the militants. Lerner said the militants had
violated pledges to refrain from violence.
More than 10,000 Palestinians attended funerals for the militants
in Nablus where businesses closed their doors answering calls for a
general strike.
Abu Mahmoud, a spokesman for the militants, urged a response of
"blood and fire" against Israel saying its "crime will not go
unpunished," and would "open the gates of hell."
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad accused Israel of having
staged an "assassination" that could torpedo already stalled
efforts to resume peace negotiations.
"This is a sad day for Palestinians," Fayyad added, also voicing a
hope "we would not be dragged into a circle of violence, chaos and
instability."
Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Abbas, told Reuters: "This grave
Israeli escalation shows Israel is not interested in peace and is
trying to explode the situation."
The settler, a father of seven, was the first Israeli killed in a
Palestinian attack in eight months.
The death toll in Saturday's incidents was the highest of any
Israeli-Palestinian confrontation in West Bank land since before
the Gaza offensive, and the worst fatalities along the Gaza border
since March.
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