4 Jewish Settlers Are Killed in Roadside Ambush

Palestinian gunmen killed four Jewish settlers Friday in an ambush of two cars in the southern West Bank, Israeli authorities said. The dead included a couple and one of their children.

A militia affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement reportedly claimed responsibility for the shootings south of the West Bank city of Hebron. All major militant Palestinian factions have vowed to avenge Israel’s killing this week of 15 Gazans, including nine children and a Hamas military commander.

The dropping of a 1-ton bomb on a congested Gaza City residential neighborhood, which achieved its goal of killing the leader of Hamas’ military wing, torpedoed a plan by several Palestinian factions to declare a cease-fire and suspend attacks after 22 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, according to Palestinian officials and Western diplomats.

Retaliation began quickly, with the killing Thursday of a rabbi from a Jewish settlement and then the attack Friday. People on both sides of the conflict fear a new surge in bloodshed.

Two or three gunmen opened fire on a white station wagon carrying a Jewish family en route to the settlement of Maon to spend the Sabbath, authorities said. The occupants were a settler couple and their four children, whose names were not immediately released.

The two adults and one child, reported to be about 14, were killed. The other children--including a 2-year-old--were injured.

The gunmen continued firing and hit a second car, killing another settler and wounding his companion.

Israeli authorities said the gunmen apparently escaped into the Palestinian village of Yatta, where the army was searching for them late Friday.

Reacting to the attack, Israel accused the Palestinians of targeting civilians. “No people can be expected to tolerate this terror, and Israel will certainly not do so,” said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Settlers are frequent targets of Palestinian gunmen. Many militants consider them to be legitimate targets because they live on land the Palestinians claim as their future state.

Meanwhile, the owners of two metalworks factories destroyed by Israeli forces earlier Friday denied that military equipment was being fabricated at their businesses and said the destruction would throw dozens of already destitute Palestinians out of work. The army said the factories were being used to produce rockets that militants frequently fire at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Four Palestinians--a woman and three men--were injured in the raid and an ensuing firefight.

Also Friday, Israeli troops conducting house-to-house searches fatally shot a Palestinian man as he stood in his kitchen in the West Bank town of Kalkilya, according to Palestinian officials.

And in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, several thousand Hamas supporters marched to demand revenge for their military commander, Salah Shehada. At the rally, another Hamas leader, Abdulaziz Rantisi, announced that a replacement for Shehada has already been chosen, but he refused to identify him. Israel had blamed Shehada for the deaths of scores of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks and alleged that he had been planning a massive assault that might have killed hundreds.