August 9, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-us-Sani 10, 1424

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NABLUS, Aug 8: An Israeli attack on a factory in the West Bank left four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier dead on Friday in the region’s most turbulent day since a ceasefire took hold six weeks ago.

Violence erupted on another front as Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon after the radical group launched its first sustained mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli troops in a disputed border area in seven months.

Reacting to the exchange in Lebanon, the United States said it had put Lebanon and Syria on notice that Hezbollah rocket attacks into Israel were unacceptable and told them to rein in the radical militia. “We have made clear to Lebanon and Syria of our serious concern over this calculated and provocative escalation by Hezbollah,” deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

The Israeli operation in the West Bank posed a new threat to efforts to make headway on a US-sponsored peace plan, with the Hamas group vowing to respond to Israel’s raid on the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Hamas confirmed it had lost two members of its armed wing in the operation. Another Palestinian was fatally shot as he hurled stones at withdrawing troops and a fourth succumbed to the effects of teargas, local doctors said.

A 20-year-old Israeli marine commando died in an exchange of fire during the raid on a house that, as the Israelis put it, was being used for making bombs.

The attack came as Israel warned the Palestinian Authority that time was running out for it to crack down on militant groups — or else its forces would do the job themselves.

Hamas’s political leaders said they were still committed to a three-month truce, but the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, swore that Israel would “pay a commensurate price” for the killings.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are among several groups that called a temporary ceasefire in their campaign of attacks against Israel on June 29, but attached a raft of conditions, including an end to all assassinations by Israel of their members.

Asked whether the statement from the armed wing meant the truce was over, Hamas leader Abdelaziz al-Rantissi said: “Hamas is still committed to the truce it declared but ... Zionist violations will not go unanswered.”

Palestinian officials also expressed fears that the truce, and any possible extension, may have been compromised by the killing.

“We had a lot of meetings last week and we reached a very positive position from factions,” culture minister Ziad Abu Amr said.

“But I see the Israeli army are trying to prevent us from reaching any positive agreement with the factions.”

Violence has drastically diminished in the past few weeks, but Israel says the truce is unilateral and that the Jewish state is not bound by its terms.

In the Nablus raid, the Israeli army dynamited and destroyed the targeted building, conducted house-to-house searches, placed the area under curfew and barred access to ambulances.

An Israeli military official said the incident was “not a violation of the truce” since the target was a bomb-making factory. “Everything was done to minimize victims in the operation,” he said.—AFP