Shooting Incident near Rafah "Grave"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak viewed the shooting attack against Israelis near Rafah "with great severity," the Prime Minister's Office said Wednesday.Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli woman in an attack on a car driving along the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip earlier Wednesday, Israeli army said. Three gunmen sprayed the car at close range with automatic weapons, the army said. A woman in the car, an employee of the Rafah crossing terminal who was on her way to work, was shot in the head and died soon thereafter. A man in the car was also injured, the report added. The gunmen escaped to the surroundings of the Palestinian international airport in Rafah in the south of Gaza Strip. This was a grave event especially on the eve of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's visit to Washington, the office quoted Barak as saying. The prime minister also called into question the seriousness of Arafat's intentions to implement the Sharm el Sheikh understandings and decrease the violence in the Palestinian territories. Israel and the Palestinians reached the Sharm el Sheikh understandings in mid-October, but low-level conflicts between Israeli troops and Palestinians have not been stopped till now. Israel has ordered the closure of the Rafah crossing as well as the Gaza airport after the shooting incident. |
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