OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, October 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli security sources Sunday, October 27, said that a Palestinian killed three soldiers, two of them officers, in Sunday's attack on a West Bank Jewish settlement.

All three died when the Palestinian activist walked into the settlement and blew himself up as soldiers tackled him.

Earlier Sunday, an Israeli spokesman said the Palestinian Authority “bears a heavy responsibility” for the suspected bomb blast which killed three people and injured 30 at a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

The explosion, which has yet not been claimed by any Palestinian resistance group, took place Sunday, at a filling station at the entrance to a Jewish settlement, Ariel, between Nablus and Ramallah, hospital sources said. Ariel is 15 kilometers north of Ramallah.

An anonymous phone caller claiming to represent the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the armed offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction carried out the attack.

According to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite channel, the settlement is usually under heavy security and any resistance operation which takes place inside it, is usually preceded by a long period of surveillance.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent predicted that this operation which effects Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s meeting with his Minister of Defense Ben Eliezer, who is urging the government to decrease and dismantle the number of settlements.

The operation came hours after an Israeli armored unit made an incursion late Saturday, October 26, into the flashpoint southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

Some 15 armored vehicles backed up by two helicopter gunships penetrated several hundred meters inside the town on the border with Egypt.

Earlier Saturday, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy died after being wounded by Israeli gunfire in Rafah, Palestinian hospital sources said.

Israeli snipers early Sunday, October 27, climbed to several rooftops in Rafah, reported the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA).

Eyewitnesses said that the occupation soldiers had forced the residents of these homes under gunpoint to cram into one room.