Palestinian gunmen ambushed an Israeli bus near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank today, killing at least seven people, before a high-level meeting on Middle East peace in New York.
Another 20 people were wounded in the attack at the entrance to the mainly ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement of Emanuel, the scene of a similar bus ambush in December in which 10 people were killed.
Al-Aqsa, an offshoot of Fatah, linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Al-Aqsa, an offshoot of Fatah, has claimed a number of attacks since the start of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that began in September 2000. In today's attack, rescue workers said Palestinian gunmen disguised as Israeli soldiers set off a roadside bomb alongside the bus from Tel Aviv and then sprayed surviving passengers with automatic weapons fire as they fled the vehicle.
The incident was the most serious attack on Israelis since the Israeli military reoccupied seven Palestinian cities in the West Bank last month after 26 people were killed in back-to-back Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem.
The attack preceded a meeting in New York of the - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - an informal coordinating group seeking a common approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
"Basically we see that nothing has changed. Anytime that the Palestinians see that there is some chance for progress in the peace process, this is what they do," said Mr Arye Mekel, an Israeli government spokesman.