Joint Palestinian attack kills three Israeli troops

Gunmen killed three Israeli soldiers, two of them women, at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip yesterday in a joint shooting and grenade attack by the two main Palestinian Islamic militant groups.

In another part of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops shot dead an 11-year-old Palestinian boy near a Jewish settlement yesterday afternoon. Israeli military sources denied any Israeli army fire during that time. The combined assault on the settlement by Islamic Jihad and Hamas followed an agreement by their leaders at talks in Syria this week to increase coordination of attacks against Israelis in the three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood.

The Israeli army said at least one militant infiltrated the heavily guarded Netzarim settlement before dawn and opened fire before soldiers shot him dead. Two of the Israeli dead were women and two other soldiers were wounded, one seriously.