Palestinian militants staged a daring raid in the West Bank on Wednesday, stabbing and wounding two Israeli soldiers in the center of Nablus and escaping with the soldiers’ guns.
One soldier was seriously wounded, while the other suffered light wounds during the attack.
The soldiers reportedly struggled with the attackers, but the Palestinians succeeded in stabbing them in their faces.
The army clamped a curfew on downtown Nablus and started a search for the attackers.
Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, the Israel Defense Force chief of staff, described the attack as “very serious,” but expressed confidence that the army would deal with the situation.
Barak said the attack showed that the army’s fight against the Palestinian intifada is not over. But he said the government’s decision six weeks ago to seal off the territories had contributed to the safety of Israeli citizens.
He said that more than 80 wanted Palestinian activists and gunmen had been captured or killed during this period.
In Nablus, the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out in retaliation for the army’s killing of six Hamas activists who had tried to cross into Egypt from the Gaza Strip.
The wanted Hamas activists were killed in two different clashes last Saturday and Monday.
The army said it had stepped up patrols on the border after several cases in which wanted terrorists had fled to Egypt, following the closure of the territories.
In the incident last Saturday, an army patrol chased three men trying to escape into Egypt near Har Keren before dawn, the army spokesman said.
After one of the fleeing Palestinians hurled a hand grenade at the soldiers, the soldiers opened fire and killed the three. A second group of three terrorists were killed Monday night.
All six carried false passports and Israeli and Egyptian money, some of it forged currency.
(Contributing to this report was JTA correspondent Hugh Orgel in Tel Aviv.)
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