6 Palestinians killed, 2 Israelis injured in clashes

Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in the West Bank and one in the Gaza Strip on an unusually bloody day of fighting Saturday that also left two Israelis injured in a rocket attack.

The clashes were the deadliest this year in the West Bank and marked a further unraveling of a 5-month-old cease-fire agreement in Gaza, where Israel staged an airstrike on a car near the source of the rocket fire.

The flare-up reflected a stalemate over a U.S.-backed proposal by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to extend the Gaza truce accord to the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in talks with Abbas, has refused to consider a broader cease-fire until militant groups in Gaza stop violating the truce with rocket attacks.

In turn, the militants contend that the strikes from Gaza are justified as long as the Israelis target their West Bank comrades in operations such as the one that set off Saturday’s chain of killing and retaliation.

Palestinian security officials said the clashes started when an Israeli undercover unit ambushed a car in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing two militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and one from Islamic Jihad.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the Israelis opened fire after being shot at from the car, which she said was laden with arms and ammunition.

Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the army’s West Bank operations were “designed to deal with a very real terror threat” and had brought a “dramatic reduction in the amount of suicide attacks in Israel” over the last two years.

Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and a third militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for launching three crude Kassam rockets into the Israeli border town of Sderot in the evening, striking a house and causing minor injuries to two residents. A pregnant woman and three other Israelis were treated for shock.

A joint statement by the groups said the rockets were fired to avenge the deaths of the three militants in Jenin.

Minutes later, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a car near the rocket-launching site in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, killing one of its occupants, Kamal Aanan, 40. The Israeli military said it was aiming at perpetrators of the rocket strike.

Islamic Jihad said the dead man was a noncombatant riding with two of its militants, who were wounded in the attack.

In fighting Saturday in the West Bank, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian policeman by firing into his home in a village near Jenin, witnesses said. An army spokeswoman said the troops were targeting a militant who was shooting from the roof.

As fighting spread to Jenin’s refugee camp, 17-year-old Bushra Wahash was fatally wounded by Israeli gunfire while peering from the window of her home. The army said it was investigating the incident.

boudreaux@latimes.com

Special correspondents Maher Abukhater in Ramallah, West Bank, and Fayed Abushamallah in Gaza City contributed to this report.