Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian resistance man in the Gaza Strip Thursday as he tried to attack an internationally illegal Jewish settlement before dawn, the occupation army and a Palestinian resistance group said. The violence accompanied growing political turmoil in Israel ahead of a January 28 election as two leading advocates of peacemaking quit the Labor Party for a more left-wing rival.

An occupation army commander said that two armed Palestinians tried to break through the fence surrounding the internationally illegal Jewish settlements of Gush Katif in Gaza. Occupation Troops in the area shot at them, killing one man while the second escaped, he said.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine identified the dead man as one of its members, saying he had planned "an armed attack against the internationally illegal settlement Netzer Hazani in southern Gaza" in response to an Israeli raid in the strip earlier this month that killed 10 Palestinians.

Internationally illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been a frequent target for Palestinian resistance groups who see them as usurpers of lands they want for a state.

SO-CALLED DOVES' EXIT COULD DRAIN LABOR VOTES

Yossi Beilin, an architect of Israeli-Palestinian interim peace deals, and Yael Dayan, an outspoken peace advocate, decided Wednesday to join the more left-wing Meretz Party list after being sidelined in this week's Labor primary.

Public opinion polls Thursday suggested their move may draw additional parliamentary seats for Meretz which now has 10 lawmakers in the 120-member assembly, luring dovish voters away from Labor, the party that led peacemaking in the 1990s.

Labor is already facing an electoral crisis, with voters increasingly turning to the right-wing Likud party headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the face of resistance bombings.

Candidates favoring a tough line against a two-year-old Palestinian uprising, including ex-defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, have also muscled their way to the top of the center-left Labour's parliamentary slate for the election.

Critics say the Labor line-up could frustrate dovish new party leader Amram Mitzna, who has called for immediate peace talks with the Palestinians and a unilateral withdrawal from occupied land if they fail.

Beilin and Dayan quit Israel's main opposition party after a primary ballot assigned them and other doves to virtually unelectable places on the list of candidates.

PATRIOT MISSILES

With Israelis increasingly jittery over the prospects of Iraqi missile strikes should the United States attack Iraq, Israeli media said a new shipment of U.S.-made Patriot anti-missile missiles arrived in the port of Haifa Wednesday.

They said the shipment from the United States consisted of two Patriot batteries and that a joint U.S.-Israeli air defense exercise would be conducted soon. Israeli officials were not available for comment.

PHOTO CAPTION

Hamas resistance activists carry the body of their colleague Yassin al-Aghah, who was killed as he tried to attack a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, at the funeral in Khan Younis on December 11, 2002. REUTERS/Reinhard Krau