A US-brokered ceasefire has failed in its initial hours to halt violence between Israelis and the Palestinians. A senior Israeli security official was killed in a gun attack in the West Bank this morning. He died when a Palestinian man opened fire on the car he was travelling in at close range. Another passenger in the car returned fire, killing the attacker. The attack occurred shortly after Israel withdrew tanks from a flashpoint in Gaza, in a first step to implement the ceasefire.
The tentative truce brokered by CIA chief George Tenet had already entered a make-or-break stage hours after its confirmation. The truce came under strain when a Palestinian driver was shot dead in the West Bank. An Israeli military source said that Awni al-Haddad, 42, had died overnight of his wounds received when the van he was driving came under fire near the Jewish settlement of Anatot, northeast of Jerusalem. A father and two sons in the vehicle with him were wounded.
A previously unknown Jewish group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Israeli media reports said that the claim came from an anonymous caller on behalf of the Shelhevet-Gilad group, named after Shalhevet Paz, a Jewish infant shot dead in Hebron, and Gilad Zar, a settler killed near Nablus.
General Benny Ganz, deputy commander of the central military region, earlier said that more than 15 shots had been fired at the truck from a car, apparently by "Palestinians who misidentified their target." Israeli radio had earlier said that the gunman was an Israeli who thought he was being attacked.
Hours before the attacks, the Israeli Defence Minister confirmed that the US-brokered ceasefire with the Palestinians had formally taken effect. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told public television that "the ceasefire entered into effect at 3.00pm. He added, "I hope and I pray that the ceasefire is applied." He said that Israeli forces would start to be re-deployed within the next 48 hours, and that Palestinian security officials would be given greater freedom of movement within the West Bank and Gaza Strip if the ceasefire held.
Former US senator George Mitchell, who chaired an international commission aimed at forging peace in the Middle East, called the ceasefire "an important step in the right direction". Speaking in the US, he said that, modest as the ceasefire was, "we must all be heartened by the progress of the last few hours".
