HEBRON, AL-KHALIL, West Bank (Islamweb & Agencies) - Israeli gunmen killed three Palestinians, including a baby boy, in a shooting that drew an urgent appeal from the Palestinian Authority for foreign observers in the West Bank and Gaza.Three-month-old Diya' Tmeizi is the youngest person killed in 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Israel Radio said a group calling itself ``The Committee for Safety on the Roads'' claimed responsibility for the shooting on Thursday near the predominantly Palestinian West Bank city of Hebron, Al-Khalil.
The attack on a car carrying a Palestinian family occurred hours after Group of Eight big-power foreign ministers in Rome called on Israel and the Palestinians to let outside monitors oversee an endangered U.S.-backed truce-to-talks plan.
Shedding crocodile tears, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the attack, but with Israeli-Palestinian violence escalating over the past week and a U.S.-brokered cease-fire all but dead, funerals on Friday for the victims were certain to inflame passions.
Hospital officials said that besides the baby, two men were killed and five people, including a four-month-old girl were wounded.
``The Palestinian leadership holds the Israeli government fully responsible for this crime against our people,'' the Palestinian Authority said in a statement.
Palestinians have long appealed for international protection against Israeli occupation army's disproportionate response to their uprising for independence they began nearly 10 months ago.
Israeli security experts have cautioned that settlers, frustrated at what they perceive to be Sharon's failure to protect them from Palestinian shooting attacks, could wage a vigilante campaign in the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinians see settlements, illegal under international law, as legitimate targets in their struggle for independence.
More than 600 people have been killed since the Palestinian revolt erupted in September, at least 42 of them since the truce was brokered on June 13.
Responding to the G8 call for international monitors earlier on Thursday, Sharon rejected any such deployment, describing it as ``a step (Israel) doesn't want.''
Israeli War Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, in a telephone conversation with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said observers would contribute nothing toward stemming the bloodshed.
The fear of more instability in the Middle East (Read photo caption below) prompted foreign ministers gathered for the G8 Summit to move the issue into the spotlight.
In making deployment of monitors contingent on the agreement of both the Israelis and Palestinians, the statement echoed language in the cease-fire-to-peacemaking plan charted by a panel led by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell.
Israel says the Mitchell plan, which also calls for a freeze in construction at Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, should be implemented in phases and only after a complete cessation of violence.
Palestinians say it is a package deal, to be carried out all at once.
At least 488 Palestinians, 128 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed since the uprising began
Israeli occupation soldiers position tanks in a field on the outskirts of Jeursalem July 18, 2001. Concern over Middle East violence pushed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the top of the Group of Eight agenda July 19, leading foreign ministers to call on the sides to let outside monitors oversee a truce. (Natalie Behring/Reuters)