Palestinians sink to new low.

This is the worst thing I have seen yet. This time the children weren't collateral damage but were seen and shot on sight. I withdraw any sympathy I may have showed to the plight of the Palestinians. It is now time for the Israeli government to do whatever they deem fit in dealing with this.

http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,69898,00.html

KIBBUTZ METZER, Israel — Israeli leaders on Monday weighed how to retaliate after a Palestinian gunman crept into a communal farm and killed five Israelis, including a mother and her two young sons as she read them a bedtime story.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group loosely affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his long-standing call for "expelling Arafat's terror regime," and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with his new defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, to discuss a response.

Sharon and Mofaz then toured Kibbutz Metzer, including the bedroom of the slain boys, Noam Ohion, 4, and his brother Matam, 5.

A Sharon adviser, Raanan Gissin, said the response will be "within the parameters of the actions we have been taking in the past few months." That seemed to rule out expelling Arafat.

Sharon has assured the United States he would not expel or harm Arafat even though he and other top decision-makers support the idea.

The United States also wants to avoid antagonizing the Arab world and doesn't want to distract from its preparations for possible war with Iraq.

The attack raised tensions in advance of a visit this week by U.S. envoy David Satterfield, who plans to discuss a U.S.-backed plan aimed at restarting Mideast peace negotiations.

After going under a fence, the gunman reached the center of the community and entered a house where the lights were on, Lieber said.

He shot dead Revital Ohion, 34, and the two boys. She was reading a bedtime story to her children when she first heard shots, which led her to call her ex-husband, Avi Ohion, relatives said.

He heard the shots on the phone, and later collapsed in tears when he learned they had been killed, the relatives said.

The gunman left the house and continued in the direction of the communal dining room where he met a couple taking a walk, Lieber said. He shot and killed the woman, while the man managed to flee.

The kibbutz' mayor, Yitzhak Dori, 42, drove up in his car and was killed by the gunman, Lieber said.

"There are no words to describe this," said Roni Cohen, the slain children's uncle.

Terrified residents at Kibbutz Metzer spent the night huddled in their homes, fearful the gunman was still among them. By daybreak Monday, Israeli security forces said the attacker had fled, apparently to the nearby West Bank.

After Israeli security forces allowed kibbutz residents out of their homes Monday morning, they gathered in the community's streets, crying and comforting one another.

The shooting rampage began late Sunday night several hours after a car exploded near the farm, killing its two Palestinian occupants in what police believed was a failed suicide bombing.

"We have a mother and her two children ... who are no longer with us, and they are victims of a war that has no end," Doron Lieber, a member of the farming community, told Israel Radio.

Kibbutz Metzer is inside Israel proper, but is less than a mile from the border with northern West Bank, where many Palestinian attackers have come from.

A bullet hole had pierced the wooden door to the single-story stucco house which had been attacked. On the porch were bikes, a rabbit, a bird cage and posters of the two boys who were killed, one of them shown strumming a guitar.

The attack was a rare instance in which a Palestinian gunmen has been able to carry out an attack on a guarded community and escape without being killed himself.

"The terrorist managed to infiltrate, massacre people ... he was shot at but unfortunately wasn't hit and it seems from all the signs he escaped," David Tzur, a commander in the border police, told Israel Radio.

Members of the dovish community said they have had close relations with their Arab neighbors and support the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"We still have good relations [with the Arabs]," said Lieber, upset at reporters who asked him about local security arrangements.

In the afternoon village elders from nearby Israeli-Arab communities arrived in the kibbutz for a condolence visit.

The attack came on the same day that officials from Arafat's Fatah movement and the militant Hamas group launched talks in Cairo.

Fatah officials have said they were going to demand that Hamas halt suicide bombings inside Israel. However, Hamas says it will continue attacks, as does the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is loosely linked to Fatah.

"This attack was a message to the negotiators in Cairo that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades will not stop its struggle and attacks against Israel," said a group spokesman in the northern West Bank, who gave his name as Abu Mujahid.

Earlier Sunday, not far from Kibbutz Metzer, a car exploded and killed the two Palestinian occupants just as suspicious Israeli police moved to stop the vehicle. It was not clear whether the Palestinians detonated the bomb intentionally or by accident, police said.

The car explosion was one of three instances Sunday in which Israeli authorities said they managed to prevent a planned suicide attack.

Throughout the West Bank, Israeli troops have been in or near Palestinian cities for nearly five months, imposing curfews and tough restrictions on Palestinian movements as part of an effort to keep militants from launching attacks.

Arafat has condemned suicide bombings, but says his security forces can't function with the Israeli troops currently controlling Palestinian areas.

Several hours after the kibbutz shooting, Israeli helicopters fired rockets into a large car repair shop in downtown Gaza City, witnesses said. The shop was empty at the time of the attack shortly. There were no reports of casualties.

An army spokesman said an Air Force helicopter fired four missiles at the shop, suspected of housing a weapons-making workshop.

Meanwhile, Israel and the Palestinians were preparing written responses to a U.S.-backed peace initiative that calls for a provisional Palestinian state by 2003 and a permanent state in 2005.

 

Let me tell you something. The Martyrs Brigade is a large organization...not some fringe militia full of whackos. When the Palestinian groups start busting into houses and murdering 4 and 5 year old children as they are being tucked into their beds it is time to say "Everybody out of the pool!"

The fact that you equate that to anything that has been done in this region before is sick.

 

This is not the fringe. This is systematic and they number in the tens of thousands.

Glad to see that you are taking a stand.

 

Who do you think gets recruited for this stuff? Oh yeah...average people off the street.

You really need to read my posts about the situation. I have been one of the loudest voices decrying the treatment of Palestinians. That being said...events like this make it very difficult for me to offer any more of those ramblings. They have taken this to a level that I will not make myself complicit in by voicing an opinion consistent with their desired goals.

 

The other 28 have done nothing to ensure that the plans of the 2 aren't carried out. In our jurisprudence that's called being an accessory.

 

This isn't about race. I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to boil it down to race...it took longer than I expected. This is about blown up colleges, blown up shopping malls and shooting rampages in a kibbutz...I could give a flying tinker's damn what color the jackasses are.

If the Palestinian Authority is so dead set against terrorism then they can go to those who have been approached to get information. But they aren't going to do that, now are they? No...they're not. Why? Because they don't care to stop the attacks.

 

I don't agree with that either...but there is a HUGE difference between that and having some jackass bust down the door to the house, see the kids, point the gun at them and pulling the trigger.

Why can't people understand that?