Islamic Group Kills 2 Soldiers in Gaza, Israel Army Says : Mideast: Pair apparently hitched ride in stolen car with Israeli plates. Attack is aimed against peace accord.

Palestinian guerrillas from the militant Islamic Resistance Movement abducted and killed two Israeli soldiers hitchhiking home early Sunday from the occupied Gaza Strip, according to an army spokesman.

Defying the peace agreement reached by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the gunmen from the fundamentalist Muslim group left a statement with the bodies of the two soldiers declaring their intention to continue the intifada , the six-year rebellion against the Israeli occupation.

The latest in a wave of violence against Israelis and Palestinians backing the accord, the attack appeared intended to weaken their resolve to implement the peace plan and to demonstrate the ability of the radical group to strike as it pleases in the Gaza Strip.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, or “Zeal” in Arabic, said in a statement distributed in Gaza that its military branch, Izzidin al Qassam, is responsible for “the kidnaping and killing of two of the enemy’s dogs in a heroic operation.”

“We have vowed to continue shooting the skulls of the Jews with the bullets of Izzidin al Qassam, and we are also sworn to respond to the conspiracy that (Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin is planning in order to humiliate our people,” Hamas declared, repeating its opposition to the peace agreement.

Also Sunday, pro-Iranian guerrillas belonging to Hezbollah, the radical Party of God in southern Lebanon, ambushed an Israeli patrol in Israel’s self-proclaimed “security zone,” wounding two soldiers. Two guerrillas were reported killed in the Israeli counterattack, and a third Israeli was wounded in the heavy artillery exchange that followed.

A Hamas leaflet, addressed to Rabin, threatened to target Israeli soldiers and settlers throughout the occupied territories and in Israel itself.

“Hey Rabin, your soldiers and settlers will be our targets everywhere, and we will not let you sleep or move in our land safely,” Hamas said. “Death will chase you everywhere.”

Rabin, cautious in his reply, told his Cabinet that Israel faces “a rather delicate transitional situation” as it prepares to leave the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Jericho under the agreement with the PLO.

Israeli forces, he said, must respond to the attacks, but with care so that they focus on the groups responsible for the violence and not on those supporting the peace agreement.

“Hamas and Islamic Jihad and organizations in the rejection front (opposed to the accord) are doing all in their power to raise the level of terror,” Rabin said.

“They will continue to try to damage the agreement, to undermine it and to kill it through escalating their attacks on Jews and Israelis in the hope of provoking the Israeli public to oppose the accord.”

Since Israel and the PLO reached agreement on Palestinian self-government, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fundamentalists have killed eight Israelis, according to Israeli reports.

But Rabin said that Fatah, the main PLO group which is loyal to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, has kept its pledge not to attack Israelis and that overall the level of attacks has dropped by half.

Still, right-wing members of the Israeli Parliament called upon Rabin to cancel the release, planned to begin today, of 760 Palestinian prisoners, about 5% of those held, as part of the peace accord. Most of the prisoners are old, infirm, women or youths under 16.

Rabin, campaigning in Jerusalem on behalf of Mayor Teddy Kollek, rejected those demands and affirmed Israel’s commitment to the agreement.

“I know it’s hard for the Israeli public to make this distinction, when we talk about Palestinians, between those who believe in the agreement and want to implement it and those who want to torpedo it,” Rabin said. “But we will continue the fight against those who carry out the terror with the intention to kill Israelis and to kill the agreement.”

The two slain soldiers, both reservists called up for duty in strife-torn Gaza, had apparently hitched a ride in a station wagon with Israeli license plates, not knowing that it had been stolen a month ago from an Israeli settlement in Gaza and was driven by two Hamas guerrillas dressed as observant Jews.

A struggle ensued, according to military sources, and the two Israelis were stabbed and shot. Their bodies were found close to a refugee camp near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

The Hamas men took the soldiers’ M-16 rifles, their radios, their army boots and trousers.

Hamas leaflets, featuring a copy of one soldier’s identity card and pictures of the men’s bodies, said they were killed to avenge the deaths of Palestinians, including Qassam leader Jamil Wadi, who was shot dead by Israeli troops in June.

“Our fighters killed the two soldiers,” Hamas said. “Jihad (holy war) is the only way to kick out the enemy. Don’t believe the words of their alleged peace.”

In a separate incident, a 20-year-old Palestinian woman was shot and killed, apparently by accident, as feuding groups of PLO gunmen in the Rafah refugee camp, also in southern Gaza, fired their weapons in a show of force, according to Palestinian journalists.

Members of the Fatah Hawks and the rival Red Eagles of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fired their guns wildly, fatally wounding the woman in the head. About 15 others were wounded during clashes between the groups.