SEVERAL Israeli government ministers are demanding the immediate establishment of a new Jewish settlement, at the spot in the West Bank where an Israeli mother and son were gunned down by Palestinian militants on Wednesday.
Mr Zevulun Hammer, the deputy prime minister who heads the National Religious Party, intends to raise the demand at a cabinet meeting today.
A Jewish settler leader, Mr Pinhas Wallerstein, threatened yesterday that if the government did not approve the establishment of a new settlement, the settlers would establish one unilaterally.
However, the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, conscious of the wave of protest the move would arouse in the Arab world, Europe and, especially, in the United States, is likely only to sanction the expansion of existing settlements, including Beit El, north of Ramallah, home to the two Israelis killed on Wednesday.
Mr Yoel Tzur, whose wife Ita and son Ephraim (12) were buried at Beit El yesterday, urged Mr Netanyahu to construct a new 1,000 home neighbourhood in their memory. He blamed their deaths on the "stupid" autonomy accords signed with the Palestinians by the previous Labour led Israeli government.
Two of Mr Tzur's young daughters remain in hospital with light injuries from the shooting. One of them, Tamar, sat up in bed yesterday to tell reporters: "Daddy told me to be strong."
Thousands of people gathered at Beit El for the funeral, and the presence of several leading Israeli ministers reflected the change in government here the replacement of the Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres coalitions, which had little fundamental sympathy for the settler cause, with Mr Netanyahu's staunchly pro settlement, right wing grouping.
With his defence minister nearby and his foreign minister in tears at his side, Mr Netanyahu took a microphone at the open gravesides to deliver a defiant message to Palestinians bent on ridding the West Bank of Jews: "We are staying here," he declared. "We are building here. We are living here. You can't uproot us from here.
The shooting was carried out by gunmen from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a PLO faction opposed to the peace process. It was condemned by Mr Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority - though not, as of last night, by Mr Arafat himself.
The hunt for the assailants continued, with Palestinian sources indicating that about a dozen PFLP activists had been arrested in Ramallah. There were reports that the weapons used in the assault had been found, and that ballistic tests indicated they had been used in previous shootings of Israelis.
An Israeli man shot dead a Palestinian worker early yesterday in the town of Kiryat Gat, claiming he mistook him for a burglar. The dead man, Mr Samir Abu Shakfa, was employed by a neighbour. The Israeli was remanded into custody.