Gunmen kill 12 Israelis in shrine ambush

Twelve Israelis were killed and 15 wounded when they were ambushed by Palestinian gunmen last night at a West Bank shrine that is sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

Militants threw grenades and fired machine-guns from a hilltop on to a group of Israelis as they walked home after Sabbath prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a sacred shrine in Hebron's old city.

The militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, which they said were in retaliation for the killing last Saturday of Iyad Sawalha, its West Bank commander.

Soldiers rushing to the scene from nearby barracks were caught up in gun battles which raged for 90 minutes. The dead and injured were ferried from the scene in army helicopters as ongoing fighting made it difficult for emergency services to reach the scene safely.

Witnesses described the ambush, which happened as worshippers returned along "worshippers lane", a road that runs to a site that is also sacred to Muslims and Jews, as a "slaughter".

"There was gunfire from left and right, from every possible angle, they were shooting at us from above," one man, who gave his name only as Arik, told Army Radio. "The group of Jews were slaughtered."

In the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, dozens of Islamic Jihad supporters rushed into the streets in celebration once the news of the ambush filtered through. Many cheered and some fired bullets in the air. "This is retaliation for the daily crimes and ugly massacres committed by the Zionist occupation against our people," one armed man said over a loudspeaker.

The attack came five days after a Palestinian gunman killed five people on an Israeli kibbutz, and was the highest death toll since October when 14 people were killed by a bus bomb in northern Israel.