Israeli army kills militants, Hamas vows revenge

Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian militants in the West Bank yesterday, and 30,000 supporters of the Islamic group Hamas rallied in the Gaza Strip, vowing to avenge the killings of gunmen and civilians.

One of the militants, Tarek Abed Rabbo, was a senior field commander of Hamas's military wing. Palestinian security sources said he was shot 13 times while hiding in a closet by Israeli soldiers who raided Nour Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm.

Four Palestinians were wounded in the operation and a Hamas militant was detained by the Israeli force, the sources said.

Earlier, soldiers killed an armed Palestinian in an exchange of fire in Thabra village, south of Bethlehem in the West Bank, when he tried to evade capture, Israeli military sources said.

But Palestinian witnesses said troops surrounded a house where Jadallah Shoka, 32, an Islamic Jihad member, was hiding and killed him in a barrage of gunfire before detaining three other men inside. They said the Israelis never came under fire.

The violence, which has continued despite Washington's appeals for calm while it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq, followed a day of bloodletting on Thursday in which seven Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed.

Five of the Palestinian dead were unarmed labourers killed by an Israeli tank shell while trying to climb a security fence around the Gaza Strip to sneak into Israel to find work.

Some 30,000 Hamas supporters packed a sports stadium in the southern Gazan town of Khan Younis, where they cheered a parade of gunmen and 20 would-be suicide bombers wearing white shrouds emblazoned with the words "martyrs-in-waiting".

"Qassam will take revenge," speakers shouted over loudspeakers, referring to Hamas's military wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades, responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide attacks.

The rally, one of the biggest Hamas has held since the start in September 2000 of a Palestinian uprising for statehood, marked the 15th anniversary of the organisation's founding.

Organisers laid Israeli flags on the steps of the stadium so that those walking to the stage to speak could tread on them.

Relatives of the five unarmed Gazans killed on Thursday said the men came from one extended family and included two brothers.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled called the killings a "tragic event" but said "they were five suspicious persons in a prohibited area".

Israeli army blockades imposed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the past two years of fighting have crippled the Palestinian economy and cut off thousands of Palestinian workers from their jobs in the Jewish state.

Israel says the closure is aimed at preventing attacks on its citizens. Palestinians call it collective punishment.

The army said troops also shot dead two gunmen on Thursday, one on a mission to attack a Jewish settlement in Gaza and another who crossed from the coastal strip into Israel and fired at soldiers who chased him.

Israelis also buried their dead.

In the divided West Bank city of Hebron, two Israeli soldiers, a man and a woman, deployed at an outpost near the Tomb of the Patriarchs shrine to protect Jewish settlers, were killed in a Palestinian ambush on Thursday night.

On Friday, Israeli armoured bulldozers demolished several Palestinian houses in the area, along the same route where gunmen laid an ambush on November 15 which killed 12 Israeli soldiers and security men from a nearby Jewish settlement.

An Israeli military source said one of the houses the army destroyed was the spot from which shots were fired on Thursday.

At least 1,720 Palestinians and 670 Israelis have been killed since the start of the Palestinian revolt.