Bus attack in Israel kills eight

Eight people were killed and about 20 wounded yesterday when an Israeli bus carrying a group of settlers was ambushed by Palestinian gunmen inside the West Bank.

It was the first serious attack by Palestinian militants in more than three weeks – and shattered the thin illusion that Ariel Sharon's policy of reoccupying several West Bank towns and putting the entire population under curfew had ended the militants' ability to strike.

The eighth death was that of a premature baby delivered by Caesarean section after the attac. The boy, whose mother remained in serious condition, was believed to be the youngest victim of more than 21 months of fighting.

The gunmen, dressed in Israeli military uniform, set off a roadside bomb, then fired on the passengers as they escaped. The timing of the attack was, it seemed, no coincidence. The onslaught came just hours before a meeting of the so-called Middle East Quartet – the US, EU, Russia and the UN – in New York to discuss the stalled peace process.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said the attack on the bus was "clearly designed to disrupt the search for a peaceful solution to the conflict." The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, is seeking support for an "action plan" that would ease the Palestinians' humanitarian situation.

Two militant groups – the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, of Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah bloc, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine – claimed responsibility for the attack. It was a near replica of one on 12 December that killed 11 people in the same place – at the entrance to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement of Emmanuel.