West Bank Clampdown

Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 8:20:35 am PDT

Israel responds to yesterday’s Palestinian act of mass murder: Israel freezes contacts, launches W. Bank clampdown.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel suspended all security contacts with the Palestinians and sealed off biblical Bethlehem in a West Bank clampdown on Monday after gunmen killed three settlers in the deadliest attack on Israelis in months.

The flare-up on Sunday in the occupied West Bank, including Israel’s killing of a senior Islamic militant, came a month after the Jewish state completed its pullout from the Gaza Strip to end 38 years of military rule.

The latest fighting stirred new doubts about an already shaky eight-month-old ceasefire and undermined hopes the Gaza pullout would spur renewed peacemaking.

That ceasefire might not be so “shaky” if the Palestinians could kick their murder habit. It gets shakier every time they launch rockets into Israel, and shakier still when they fire into a crowd of people on a street.