3 Killed by Palestinian Gunman Wearing Israeli Army Uniform

Disguised as an Israeli soldier and armed with an assault rifle, a Palestinian fired helter-skelter into a crowded bus station in the central town of Afula on Thursday, killing three Israelis and wounding at least 13.

And before dawn today, Israeli armor roared into the Palestinian-controlled section of Hebron and at least five Palestinians were killed in a fierce gun battle, witnesses said. Tanks and troops seized two neighborhoods in the volatile city, where Palestinian snipers have opened fire on Jewish residents and holiday visitors in the last couple of days. Israeli helicopter gunships also shelled Palestinian buildings today, injuring at least 12 Palestinians, the witnesses said.

The escalating violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon confirmed he was canceling most of a U.S.-backed cease-fire and said he would not jeopardize Israeli security for Washington’s coalition-building.

In angry remarks Thursday night, Sharon directed as much of his wrath at the United States as at the Palestinians. He accused Washington of sacrificing Israel in the quest to build an anti-terrorism alliance including Arab states.

Sharon’s unusually harsh condemnation of U.S. policies came during a late-night news conference called to comment on the crash into the Black Sea of a Russian airliner carrying dozens of Israelis. He expressed sorrow over the loss of life, then shifted to the Afula shooting.

He accused the Palestinians of repeatedly violating a cease-fire declared last month--a charge that Palestinians also level against Israel--and said Western democracies should stop pressuring Israel to negotiate “under fire” just because it would satisfy Arab states.

“Do not try to appease the Arabs at our expense,” Sharon said.

Keen to push the Middle East conflict to the back burner, the Bush administration has been urging Sharon’s government to open talks with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and to end what it called “provocative” actions such as incursions into Palestinian territory. The U.S. also demanded that Arafat work to stop terrorism by Islamic extremists.

But the Israeli government does not want to negotiate while Palestinians are still shooting and bombs are still going off. The U.S. wants peace in the region, but Sharon fears it would be in exchange for concessions he is not prepared to make.

Sharon compared the West’s actions today with those of European democracies before World War II, when the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to appease Hitler.

“This is unacceptable to us. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terrorism.”

Israel has decided not to ease the punishing closures that have blockaded Palestinian towns and will revert to a widely condemned policy of hunting and killing key Palestinian militants.

In the eight days since Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres agreed to formalize a truce, violence has been on the rise. With Thursday’s attack but before today’s Hebron incursion, 28 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed in that period.

On Thursday, witnesses said, the Palestinian strode into a market outside the Afula bus station, dressed in an olive-green Israeli army uniform and a red paratrooper’s beret. He fired wildly with an M-16, then reloaded and continued firing, witnesses said.

Shots blasted bus windows and sent passersby diving for cover.

An unidentified bus driver told Israeli radio that it took a few moments for police to figure out what was going on and who was doing the shooting because everyone was confused by the assailant’s disguise. Police then shot the assailant dead.