THE MIDDLE EAST: A group including the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for an attack in the Gaza Strip yesterday in which three Israelis were killed.
An army spokesman, who declined to confirm casualty figures, said a roadside bomb was detonated and shots fired at the civilian convoy, which included cars and a bus, on a road between the Jewish settlement of Netzarim and the Karni Crossing linking the Gaza Strip and Israel.
When emergency vehicles and a tank the arrived on the scene, the tank rolled over a "very sophisticated anti-armour device," a military source said.
The bus driver, identified as Itzik, told Israeli television: "We heard an explosion and saw a blue flash in the orchard area. We continued in the bus towards Karni, while the jeep behind stopped to open fire at the spot where it looked like the terrorists were."
A statement by the Salahudin Brigade, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees group, said the attack was in response to Israel's killing on Wednesday of five Palestinian policemen during a raid in the Gaza Strip and the threat to carve "security zones" into Palestinian areas to protect Israeli cities vulnerable to attack by a new missile.
"In response to the killing of five soldiers of the national security forces and in response to the raid on our cities and villages . . . Salahudin Brigade detonated two roadside bombs against a Zionist convoy . . . then sprayed the convoy with machinegun fire", said the statement received by Reuters.
The Israeli raid into three Palestinian areas was in retaliation for the unprecedented launch of two Kassam-II rockets by Hamas militants at Israel on Sunday. At least 843 Palestinians and 259 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw and his German counterpart, Mr Joschka Fischer, held talks yesterday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders about ending the intifada.
But Ahmed Qurei, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament who met with Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, a few days ago, confirmed the dim prospects for progress by declaring that he would not meet again with Mr Sharon until Israel ended its "aggressive" policy against the Palestinian Authority and its leader Yasser Arafat . "The door is closed and the key seems to be lost," said a grim Mr Fischer.
Israeli military commentators yesterday criticized the army's deep incursion into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday - noting the key Islamic militants the troops had hoped to arrest had plenty of time to avoid capture. The analysts also derided Israeli leaders' public concern about the danger posed by Hamas's Kassam II rockets - two of which were fired into Israel last Sunday, prompting the Gaza raid.
The missiles are so wildly inaccurate, the Ha'aretz daily quoted security sources as saying, that even "the simultaneous launching of several" Kassams would cause little if any damage or casualties.
Also yesterday, the International Court of Justice (IJC) sounded the death knell for a Belgian attempt to try Mr Sharon for alleged war crimes, ruling that serving ministers were protected from prosecution.
Mr Jan Devadder, legal adviser to the Belgian Foreign Ministry, said the IJC's landmark decision would likely prompt Belgium to drop its case against Mr Sharon.
"The Sharon case, in my opinion, is closed," Mr Devadder told Reuters, after the ruling by the UN's highest judicial body.
The ICJ ruled Belgium had no right to issue an arrest warrant for a former Congolese minister accused of human rights abuses as he was immune from prosecution.