Suicide gunmen hailed as heroes by Palestinians

War on terrorism: Gaza Strip

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Israel freezes truce contacts after retaliating for Palestinian attack

Six Palestinians had been wiped out only hours earlier, most by an Israeli tank shell. Mourners were gathering at a nearby Gaza mosque for yet another funeral. But none of these dismal scenes could dent the alarming approval with which the group of Yasser Arafat's policemen mulled over the latest weapon to be used by the Palestinian militants fighting Israel.

For the first time in the intifada, Hamas had sent young suicide gunmen ­ rather than bombers ­ to kill and maim Jewish civilians. The policemen were impressed. "These men are heroes," said one officer.

"They are winners twice over. They have won because they are martyrs who will go to paradise. And they have won because they have killed settlers living illegally on our land."

On Tuesday, two suicide gunmen had sneaked across this landscape, cut through two fences, one electrified, and entered the settlement at Elei Sinai, blazing away with Kalashnikovs and tossing grenades. The Israeli army, which has troops inside Elei Sinai to protect the 450 Jewish residents, scrambled to the scene.

After a three-hour gun battle, border police commandos killed the guerrillas, who had gone there knowing they stood no chance of survival.

But not before the gunmen had shot dead Liron Harpaz, 18, an off-duty soldier from the settlement, and her boyfriend, Assaf Yitzhaki, 20, from Lod in central Israel. The couple had been out walking.

It was a cruel and brutal raid that the Palestinian security forces ­ these policemen included ­ had been supposed to prevent. Last week, Yasser Arafat and Israel's Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, reached an agreement to make the "maximum effort" to enforce the latest ceasefire.

The Israeli army treated the truce with contempt from the start, and carried on killing Palestinians, regardless of America's desire for both sides to end the fighting so that Washington can coax Arab and Islamic nations into accepting its war on terror. The Palestinian militants did not observe it for long either.

But the group of policemen ­ for all their enthusiasm for the Hamas killers ­ insisted that they supported the ceasefire and would have arrested the two gunmen, had they encountered them. Only last Friday, one young officer explained, they caught a band of four Hamas paramilitaries preparing to fire a mortar at the settlement. Those guerrillas were now behind bars, said the men.

The policemen support Mr Arafat, who has concluded that it is now better to improve his relations with Washington than to take any action that could fuel the tireless campaign by Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to prove that the Palestinians are no different to the fanatical murderers who wiped out 6,000 lives in America. Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority was unusually swift to condemn Tuesday's raid.

The policemen ­ torn between their support for the fight against Israel and their loyalties to Mr Arafat ­ were in favour of this. "We want to prove to Sharon that we are doing our best to apply this ceasefire ­ and we will carry on doing so," said one.

As he spoke, the Israeli army's retaliation for Tuesday's raid was in full swing just a few hundred yards away. Farmland around the settlement was being flattened ­ the army used its usual pretext of "security reasons" ­ and tanks had moved about half a mile into Palestinian-controlled territory, shelling at least seven police posts. Six Palestinians were killed, including four officers from the Palestinian security forces whose outpost was hit by an Israeli tank shell.

In the past, even the Americans have condemned Israel for invasions of Palestinian land. Asked how long this one would last, Brigadier-General Israel Ziv, the Israeli army's Gaza commander, was evasive: "Time is not the issue here. After we have finished what we have to do, we will probably withdraw." And across the region, the life of another cease-fire was draining away ­ although neither side was yesterday willing to pronounce it dead ­ and so was the untrusting diplomatic liaison that was forced by the US and its allies on two unwilling partners.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, there were reports last night that Palestinian gunmen fired on a crowd of Israelis who gathered to celebrate the Jewish Sukkot harvest festival. And the Mitchell and Tenet agreements ­ documents on which international community still pathetically pins its faith ­ were left to gather dust for another day.