Israel Hunts for Gunmen in Ambush

Israeli ground troops backed by helicopters scoured the southern West Bank on Saturday in search of Palestinian gunmen who killed four people in an ambush near Hebron.

Soldiers searched the village of Yatta and surrounding areas where the militants are believed to have fled after the deadly shooting Friday, the army said.

The attack raised fears of a surge in violence after an Israeli airstrike that killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza City on Tuesday, including nine children and Salah Shehada, the military commander of the Islamic group Hamas.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told the German magazine Der Spiegel that the strike was “100% a mistake.”

“The outcome shows clearly we used the wrong weapon,” Peres said of the 1-ton explosive used in the strike.

The four Israelis who were killed near Hebron were ambushed in their cars. Three of the dead were identified as a married couple and their child from the Psagot settlement near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The United Nations Security Council, meanwhile, put off until Monday its debate over an Arab-backed resolution condemning Israeli military actions.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, told a closed Security Council meeting that the resolution was one-sided and that the United States would oppose it, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. The resolution expressed sympathy for Palestinian victims of 22 months of bloodshed, but it made no mention of Israeli victims or Palestinian attacks.