SHFARAM (Israel), Aug 4: A soldier from a Jewish settlement shot dead four people on a bus in an Israeli Arab town on Thursday in what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called an attack by a “bloodthirsty terrorist” ahead of a Gaza pullout. The teenage attacker, wearing uniform and the skullcap of a religious Jew, was beaten to death by residents of the town of Shfaram, who stormed the bus and smashed the windows.

Security agencies had warned that Jewish militants against the evacuation of Gaza settlements, due to start in two weeks, could attack Palestinians to fire up conflict in a bid to wreck a pullout they see as rejecting a biblical birthright.

Hamas threatened reprisals for the shooting, the deadliest by a Jewish radical since 29 Palestinians were killed in 1994. Sharon called it “a sinful act by a bloodthirsty terrorist.”

“This terror incident is a deliberate attempt to harm the relations between the citizens of Israel. Terror between civilians is the most dangerous thing for the future of Israel and its democratic stability,” his office said in a statement. The army said Eden Nathan Zaada had “deserted and was of a problematic background”.

At least 22 people, all but seven of them Arabs, were hurt in the shooting and the ensuing fracas. The government has accused some ultranationalists of trying to incite violence ahead of the plan to remove 9,000 settlers from Gaza.—Reuters