TEL AVIV, April 27: Five people were killed when two Palestinian guerillas attacked an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Saturday, the army said.

“Five people have been killed” and six wounded, one seriously, an army spokeswoman said after the attack on Adora, a few kilometres west of the divided city of Al Khalil.

There was no immediate word on what happened to the attacker or attackers. The army said it was searching the area.

There have been few, if any, attacks on Jewish settlements in the West Bank since Israel launched a sweeping offensive into Palestinian-ruled cities on March 29 after suicide bombings that killed scores of Israelis.

Al Khalil was the only big city not reoccupied in the military sweep, possibly because the army feared that a full-scale assault would endanger about 400 Jewish settlers who live in heavily guarded enclaves among 120,000 Palestinians.

JENIN MISSION: Averting an impasse, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed to delay a fact-finding team probing Israel’s assault on the Jenin refugee camp so that the Israeli cabinet could take a formal decision on Sunday.