JERUSALEM // Israeli troops killed two senior Hamas militants in an early-morning raid in the West Bank city of Hebron today, the Israeli military and Hamas officials said, an act that raised tensions as peace talks remain stuck over Israeli settlements.
The two gunmen were wanted in connection with the killing of four Israelis near Hebron on August 31, just as new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were getting under way, the Israeli military said. Media aligned with Hamas in the Gaza Strip also said the men were behind the attack.
Israeli soldiers with jeeps and an armoured bulldozer surrounded a house in Hebron before dawn. The military said the men rebuffed calls to surrender and began shooting at the Israeli troops outside. The soldiers then used force, killing both militants, the military said. The gunfire left the walls pocked with bullet holes, and an AP photographer on the scene saw one body on the street outside. Palestinian and Israeli security forces had been looking for the Hamas men since the four Israelis from a nearby settlement were shot while driving on a road near Hebron, Palestinian security officials said.
Hamas's military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, issued a statement threatening to avenge the deaths. A Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the militant group, confirmed that both of the men killed were senior members of the group's armed wing. The official blamed the Western-backed Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas, which wields limited power in the West Bank, for enabling the raid by cooperating with Israel, and for holding new peace talks.
Those negotiations, which began early last month, are currently deadlocked over the end of a temporary slowdown of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has rebuffed pressure from the Palestinians, the US and the international community to extend the building restrictions. The Palestinians have threatened to quit the talks if there is no extension.
Arab foreign ministers are set to discuss the talks at a meeting in Sirte, Libya, today, and their position on the matter is expected to influence Mr Abbas's decision about whether to continue the negotiations even without a slowdown extension. Mr Abbas and Israel both see Hamas as an enemy and have cooperated in cracking down on the group's members in the West Bank. Hamas has threatened to use violence to derail the new negotiations, and the resumption of direct talks between Abbas and the Israeli government has been accompanied by a rise in violence.
* AP