The military wing of Hamas has
claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed four Israelis near
Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
At least one gunman opened fire on a car driving on Highway 60 near the Kiryat Arba settlement on Tuesday.
The
Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, claimed
responsibility for the attack in a short statement posted on its
website, and said it would be the first in a "series of operations" in
the West Bank.
Israseli rescue services said the victims were two men and two women, and that one of the women was pregnant.
This is the first fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank since June, when one police officer was killed and two others wounded in an ambush. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for that attack.
The shooting comes one day before Palestinian and Israeli officials
are scheduled to meet in Washington in an effort to relaunch direct
negotiations.
Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesman, told Al Jazeera that Hamas had not
planned any attacks intended to sabotage the Israeli-PA talks. But
Hamdan said he was speaking for the political wing of Hamas, and that
the Qassam Brigades could have planned the attack independently.
"We believe that there is no need to do something like this to
sabotage these negotiations, because Netanyahu has [already] done this,"
he said.
Israeli officials have called security one of their top priorities for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said on Sunday that
"the establishment of tangible security measures" was a precondition for
talks with the PA. In a statement issued shortly after the shooting,
Netanyahu said he directed Israeli security forces to "pursue the
attackers without any diplomatic restraint".
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, acknowledged Israel's security concerns in an address earlier this week,
but said they could not be used as a pretext for a "land grab". Kiryat
Arba is built on land seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and is
considered an illegal settlement by the United Nations.
'Sabotage the process'
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's
executive committee, told Al Jazeera that the timing of the attack "is
related to the beginning of talks".
"There seems to be a pattern each time there is an advance [in the
peace process] or the commencement of talks, attacks happen," she said.
"The situation here is unstable, unsecure, and people pay attention
when there is violence against Israelis, while the violence Palestinians
face at the hands of Israelis on a daily basis goes unnoticed."
PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, called for
Israeli and Palestinian leaders to show "determination" and continue
talks despite any violence.
"We are cognizant that there could be external events that can ...
have an impact on the environment," he said at a press briefing in
Washington.
"We are also cognizant that there may well be actors in the region
who are deliberately making these kinds of attacks in order to sabotage
the process.
"Not everyone sees this in the same way, and there are those who will do whatever they can to disrupt the process."
The Israeli embassy in Washington issued a short statement in
response to the attack. "[It was] clearly intended to derail the peace
talks, but we will not be deterred from seeking peace," it said.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank have not responded to the attack.