7 Slain as Gunmen Ambush Israeli Bus in the West Bank

Palestinian gunmen dressed as Israeli soldiers ambushed an armored bus near the entrance to this Jewish settlement Tuesday, disabling the vehicle with a roadside bomb before climbing onto the roof and firing inside, killing seven people, including an infant.

Among the dead, hospital officials said, were three members of the same family: a woman, her son-in-law and his 9-month-old daughter. The dead man’s wife, their 2-year-old son and the dead infant’s twin were among at least 17 people injured in the ambush, the first fatal attack on Israeli civilians since June 20.

Doctors reportedly were fighting Tuesday night to save the lives of a gravely injured woman and her baby, whom they were forced to deliver prematurely by caesarean section. The child was born without a pulse; doctors briefly restored the pulse but the infant did not survive, Israel Television reported today.

Israeli troops descended on the scene of the attack within minutes, but the gunmen escaped across the rocky, terraced hilltops that surround this ultra-Orthodox settlement in the northern West Bank.

Early today, the army reported that its troops were engaged in a shootout near the settlement with gunmen who the military believed had carried out the attack. One gunman was shot dead and an Israeli also was killed, the army said.

Three Palestinian organizations, including a militia of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the killings, although his Palestinian Authority condemned the attack. The Israeli government blamed Arafat.

The ambush came as diplomats from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations conferred in New York on ways to put an end to Israeli-Palestinian violence and revive moribund peacemaking efforts. The Bush administration quickly condemned the attack.

The day’s violence “is another reminder of why it is so important, in the president’s judgment, for all the parties in the Middle East to do their utmost to focus on peace, to stop the terrorism that is plaguing the people of Israel, and to take every action possible to bring peace to the region,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters in Washington.

The carefully planned assault virtually duplicated one outside the same settlement Dec. 12 in which 10 Israelis were killed. Israel severed all contact with Arafat after the earlier ambush and hunted down militants across the West Bank. This time, however, it was unclear what, if any, retaliation the government would launch.

Israel reoccupied much of the West Bank last month after 26 Israelis were killed in back-to-back bombings in Jerusalem. Soldiers remain in control of seven of the eight major Palestinian cities. Hundreds of thousands of residents have been confined to their homes for weeks, with only a few hours’ respite every few days to buy groceries. Troops have been rounding up militants, confiscating weapons and destroying explosives laboratories round the clock for three weeks.

But about 3 p.m. Tuesday, an explosion rocked bus No. 189 as it approached the entrance to Emmanuel on its regular run from Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv. Although the bus was armored, the force of the blast knocked it off the road and blew a crater into a rocky hillside.

At least three gunmen then attacked the bus and a truck that had been driving close to it. The army said the gunmen appeared to have camped out overnight near the site.

The radical Islamic movement Hamas claimed responsibility, as did the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of the Fatah movement and the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

International human rights organizations have condemned such attacks as war crimes perpetrated on civilians. However, Palestinian militant groups consider Jewish settlers legitimate targets, arguing that they are living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in contravention of international law.

The Palestinian Authority--which usually reserves its statements of condemnation for attacks carried out inside the borders of pre-1967 Israel--said it “condemns the attack in accordance with its policies that reject targeting civilians, Israelis or Palestinians.”

Survivors said the gunmen threw grenades into the bus and opened fire through the unarmored roof and tiny windows close to the roof that were not bulletproofed.

“At least two terrorists climbed the roof of the bus and started shooting from above in all directions,” said Natalia Pollack, who is nine months pregnant. She was riding the bus to her home in Emmanuel when the attack occurred.

“Everyone on board lay on the floor,” said Pollack, who was lightly injured by shrapnel. Many of the passengers recited psalms as they waited for rescue, she and other survivors said.

“I was afraid that all of us would die,” said Uriel Litvak, 18, another Emmanuel resident on the bus. He told the Israeli Internet news service Y-net that the passengers could not escape because the bus’ doors were jammed.

Hodaya Hayun, 17, who had been riding with her 15-year-old sister, Ruhama, said her family had already decided to leave Emmanuel “because of the situation.” She was lightly injured and her sister escaped harm, but they will certainly move, she said, by the end of the month.

Standing with a bloodied bandage wrapped around her forehead, Hodaya recounted how she was handed a baby, “naked and white, covered in blood,” as she got off the bus after help arrived. “I thought it was dead,” she related calmly. “Then someone wetted her lips, and she started to cry. We covered her.”

Hodaya did not know what became of the infant.

Speaking to reporters near the bus three hours after the ambush, Israeli army Brig. Gen. Gershon Yitzhak said it was impossible to thwart every attack. “We can see through this attack the complexity of fighting the Palestinian terror,” he said. “While we are obliged to be strong at every place and at every hour, they need be strong only in the place they attack,” he said.

Speaking on Israel Television, Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin said the situation would be worse if troops had not reoccupied Palestinian towns.

“Imagine what would have happened if we had not been in the West Bank areas, catching people prepared to kill us on buses and kindergartens every day,” he said.

But Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing opposition in the Israeli parliament, warned that the government’s open-ended reoccupation of cities and imposition of long curfews are causing such distress among Palestinians that “Israel should prepare for a third popular intifada on the part of the hungry, suffering and poor masses.”

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres postponed a meeting scheduled for today between a team of Israelis he heads and Arafat’s administration. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently appointed the Israeli team to negotiate humanitarian issues with the Palestinians.

The two sides were supposed to discuss ways of improving the day-to-day lives of the 800,000 Palestinians living under Israeli military curfews and blockades. But Peres, speaking on Israel Television’s “Politica” program Tuesday night, said he still intends to hold the discussion.

“I won’t give up negotiation,” he said. “It is wise to continue talking even when there is shooting.”

He postponed the meeting, Peres said, “because funerals will be held tomorrow and I do not want to hold meetings at such an hour--we are all filled with pain.”

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.