Three killed as Israel awaits results

The delayed detonation of a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip killed two Israeli shepherds and Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian…

The delayed detonation of a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip killed two Israeli shepherds and Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian militant in the West Bank today, as the Jewish state awaited general election results.

Medics said the shepherds, a man and a child who were both Israeli Arabs, were killed in southern Israel when a rocket fired at an unknown time from Gaza exploded. Police called the blast an accident but had no further details on how it happened.

Islamic Jihad, among factions spearheading a 5-year-old Palestinian revolt, claimed responsibility for the rocket.  Palestinian militants regularly fire barrages from Gaza, from where Israel withdrew last year after 38 years of occupation, but the  makeshift missiles rarely cause casualties.

Near the West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli soldiers shot dead an Islamic Jihad militant during an exchange of fire, sources on both sides said. Israel said the gunman was wanted for involvement in violence against Israel.

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The Kadima Party led by interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this evening won a significant majority according to exit polls, but not by enough to govern alone.

Mr Olmert wants to break the cycle of violence by taking unilateral steps, including uprooting some West Bank settlements, to impose a border with the Palestinians, and looks to be on course to do so in coalition with the Labour Party.

Opponents of giving up land argue that such withdrawals encourage militants to fire rockets and carry out other attacks.

Negotiations on Palestinian statehood in Gaza and the occupied West Bank collapsed before the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000. Chances for reviving talks have looked even slimmer since Hamas Islamic militants, formally committed to destroying Israel, won Palestinian elections in January.

Hamas has nonetheless respected a year-old truce more than some other Palestinian factions.

Members of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group within President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, put on a show of rockets, mortars and grenades in the Gaza Strip today  and vowed to intensify attacks on Israel.

They said they had developed rockets that could hit the nearby city of Ashkelon and planned to launch them in an operation dubbed "Volcano of Fire".