Remains of a car which was burned out when Israeli soldiers shot five Palestinians

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, December 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Two Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian fire Thursday, December 12, in Al-Khalil (Hebron), hours after Israeli forces gunned down five Palestinians near the Karni crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

The Israeli soldiers were killed while guarding a Jewish settlement in Al-Khalil, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

There were no immediate details available as to which side of the Karni fence the five unarmed Palestinians were on when the Israeli troops shot them, but the Israeli sources claimed the men were attempting to slip into Israel.

The identities of the dead men were not yet known, but Palestinian medical sources in Gaza City said the Israeli army had contacted them to collect the five bodies.

Meanwhile, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, claimed responsibility for an attempted assault on the illegal Gush Katif Jewish settlement earlier in the day in which the attacker died.

Earlier, an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the southern Gaza Strip when an army jeep ran over an explosive device, in an attack claimed by the armed wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas.

In another development, the Palestinian central elections committee said it will announce Monday whether polls slated for January 20 will be postponed due to Israel’s reoccupation of most of the West Bank.

“We will present our final recommendations to President Yasser Arafat within two days and make our final decision public on Monday,” Secretary General Ali Jarbawi said after his committee met the Palestinian leader in his Ramallah headquarters.

“Our position is that the Israeli army’s reoccupation of Palestinian cities makes holding elections impossible,” he told AFP.

“The electoral committee members could not all meet (Thursday) because of the army occupation ... For example, we had to conduct the session via videoconference with Gaza.”

With this in mind, he asked: “How do we hold elections?”

The Palestinian leadership announced last June under U.S. and Israeli pressure that presidential and legislative elections would be held on January 20, 2003, and local elections in March.

On Tuesday, December 10, Palestinian labor minister Ghassan Khatib told reporters six months were needed to prepare for elections, adding that a new date would probably not be decided immediately.

“Palestinians are still committed to having elections which will renew the credibility of the Palestinian leadership,” he said, stressing however that the elections would probably be postponed indefinitely.

Israel has reoccupied most of the West Bank since June and carries out regular incursions into the Gaza Strip allegedly to track down Palestinian resistance fighters.

Curfews and closures in the West Bank severely hamper the free movement of people and goods.

The Gaza Strip has been virtually sealed off from Israel and the West Bank since the start of the 26-month-old intifada.

Thursday's deaths raise the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian Intifada to 2,766, including 2,037 Palestinians and 680 Israelis.