Panicked Israelis cordon off the region

With additional reporting by Mustafa Al-Sawwaf, IOL Palestine correspondent

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, February 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In a resistance operation, three Palestinian fighters were killed Sunday, February 9, when their explosives-laden car pulled up at an Israeli site north of the Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, leaving four Israeli soldiers wounded.

The car pulled up at a checkpoint guarding the Gush Katif-based Urhan checkpoint, IslamOnline quoted Israeli security sources as saying.

One of the three fighters opened fire at the Israeli soldiers before the car exploded. The three fighters have been not yet identified and no body has so far claimed responsibility for the operation.

Eyewitnesses said a huge explosion took place and the car was reduced to smithereens, noting that the Israeli army cordoned off the region.

The strike came just one day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s revealed they had been holding secret talks on a gradual ceasefire with senior Palestinian officials, a move seen by many as a bid to woo the dovish Labor party into the new coalition he is forming, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Israeli President Moshe Katsav was to officially ask Sharon, whose right-wing Likud party garnered a total of 40 out of 120 parliamentary seats in last month’s general elections, to form a new government later Sunday.

However, Sharon wants to draw in Labor, which recorded its worst ever result with just 19 seats, to avoid having to rely on a patchwork government of small far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties with hard-line agendas.

Labor’s freshman leader Amram Mitzna has vehemently refused to join any coalition led by Sharon, whose troops have retaken the West Bank to crack down hard on the Palestinian fighters, a seven-month reoccupation that has left the Labor-crafted Oslo peace accords in shreds.

The hawkish and wartime premier held two meetings with Palestinian officials around the elections which swept him back to power - one with Palestine Liberation Organization number two Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) before the polls and one with parliament speaker Ahmed Qorei (Abu Ala) afterwards, Israeli public television said Friday, February 7.