Militants Send Message With Gaza Attack

In a challenge to Mahmoud Abbas, president-elect of the Palestinian Authority, Islamic militants killed a Jewish settler and wounded three Israeli soldiers Wednesday with homemade explosives laid on a settlement boundary road in the Gaza Strip.

Israel officials, however, said the attack would not affect plans for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to meet soon with Abbas.

A date for their talks has not been set.

The explosion took place at midmorning on the edge of the settlement of Morag in southern Gaza. The blast wrecked an army jeep, wounding three soldiers and killing a civilian construction engineer from a nearby settlement who was riding with them.

Two Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad were killed by troops in separate shootouts a short time later.

The army said the attackers apparently had cut through the settlement’s perimeter fence and slipped inside to plant bombs on the road.

Israeli troops said they later found at least four unexploded devices in the area.

Islamic Jihad said the attack was meant to demonstrate the group’s opposition to any letup in the confrontation with Israel.

“This operation was in line with Islamic Jihad’s strategy of resisting occupation for as long as it lasts,” said Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad spokesman in Gaza City.

Abbas, who was elected Sunday to replace the late Yasser Arafat, has urged a halt to the armed struggle and says he wants to try to reach a peace accord with Israel.

Israel sometimes has called off talks with Palestinian officials after militant attacks. This time, however, a Sharon aide said the violence pointed up the need for the Israeli leader to speak with Abbas about reining in groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

“I think this will be one of the critical issues, once there’s a meeting,” said Raanan Gissin, a senior aide to Sharon. “We’re coming to the meeting with a clean slate, with good intentions.”

He said, however, that in the meantime, Israel would respond militarily to such attacks.

“We will not tolerate fire on our convoys and our people until such time as the Palestinian Authority and its new government understand it is in their interest to prevent such attacks,” Gissin said.

In the northern West Bank village of Karawat Bani Zeid, Israeli troops shot and killed two men they said were wanted Hamas militants. It was the first such Israeli raid since the Palestinian election Sunday.

Palestinian officials said they hoped fresh fighting would not spoil the atmosphere of conciliation in the wake of Abbas’ victory.

“What happened in Gaza and the West Bank today underlines the urgency of reaching a mutual cease-fire to pave the way back to the negotiating table,” Nabil abu Rudaineh, an aide to Abbas, told Reuters news agency.

Both sides are worried about an eruption of violence in Gaza. The seaside territory has for months been the scene of heavy, sporadic fighting as Sharon moves ahead with an initiative to withdraw Jewish settlements and troops from Gaza.

The Palestinian militant groups are determined to make it appear that they drove the Israelis out; Israel is equally determined to not give the impression it is retreating under fire.

Jewish settlers and their supporters have been waging an all-out campaign to block the pullout. The main target of their fury is Sharon, who for decades championed the settlers’ movement but is now seen by them as a traitor.

In Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, opponents of the withdrawal initiative had threatened to vote against the national budget in protest. But the spending blueprint passed its initial parliamentary test Wednesday after rebels within Sharon’s Likud Party backed down at the last moment.

The dissenters will have a chance to try again, however, when the budget comes up for two more votes required for final passage, probably next month.

Sharon has lurched from one political crisis to the next since announcing his Gaza initiative in 2003. The prime minister lost his parliamentary majority last year in infighting over the plan, but a new coalition Cabinet was sworn in this week that includes the left-leaning Labor Party and a small religious party, United Torah Judaism.

Abbas, meanwhile, is preparing for his own new government and has asked Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Korei to continue in his post and form a Cabinet.

After some delays while challenges to Sunday’s vote were resolved, Palestinian officials said Abbas was expected to be sworn in Saturday.

Palestinians had hoped to have a new government in place within 60 days of Arafat’s death. The 75-year-old leader died Nov. 11 at a military hospital outside Paris.

In the Knesset, Israeli Arab lawmaker Azmi Bishara warned the government against believing that Abbas would easily give ground on core Palestinian demands, including an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital.

“He is the chosen leader elected by the Palestinian people for the Palestinian people, not for the Israelis,” Bishara told lawmakers.

“Don’t give him a bear hug.”

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Special correspondent Rushdie abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.