Gunmen Attack Jewish Settlement

One Israeli was killed and three injured Friday when two Palestinian gunmen attacked the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, the army said. One of the gunmen was shot and killed in the attack.

Army troops were searching the settlement and the nearby town of Hebron for one of the gunmen who escaped, the army said. The militant group Hamas took responsibility for the attack in a leaflet distributed in Hebron.

The attack began after dark when the gunmen knocked on the door of a home, shooting and killing a man who answered the door, and then shooting and lightly injuring a four-year-old girl and two young men inside, the army said.

Another person inside the house shot and killed the gunman, who was masked and armed with an M-16 gun and a pistol, while the other attacker fled, the army said.

Hamas said the attack was in retaliation for the Israeli troop occupation of Palestinian towns. Israel says the troop deployments in seven of the eight major West Bank towns in recent months are necessary to prevent suicide bombings and attacks.

Tensions have been high in the Hebron area since Nov. 16 when 12 Israeli security forces were killed in an ambush by Palestinian gunmen between Kiryat Arba and Hebron. But the region has been relatively calm recently despite more than two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called last week on militant groups to abstain from attacks in order not to influence the Israeli elections on Jan. 28. Israel has tried not to ignite the situation so as not to distract world attention from a possible U.S. offensive against Iraq.

Meanwhile, Israelis and Palestinians prepared Friday for any U.S. military action in Iraq, with Palestinians demonstrating in favor of Saddam Hussein and Israelis lining up to receive equipment to protect them in the event of a chemical or biological attack by Iraq.

Israeli fears Iraq might retaliate against the country in response to a U.S. strike were renewed by Thursday's discovery of empty chemical warheads near Baghdad.

Also Friday, the Islamic militant group Hamas claimed it was behind a botched attack with a booby-trapped raft. An Israeli navy gunship fired on the dinghy, causing a large explosion off Gaza's northern coast. Hamas did not say what the attacker's target was, but several Jewish settlements are near that stretch of shore.

In Gaza City, about 3,500 Palestinians filled narrow streets with fluttering Iraqi flags and pictures of Saddam. Some chanted together, "Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv," reviving an old slogan from the 1991 Gulf War.

Flanked by three guards hefting submachine guns, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader, told reporters that the march was evidence of strong Palestinian support for Iraq.

"The Palestinian people and Iraqi people are in the same trench of resistance against the aggression and against injustice," he said.

Arafat, who backed Iraq in 1991, has withheld public support for Saddam. Still, members of his Fatah movement were among the demonstrators and Palestinian police officers did not try to break up the rally.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat was evasive when asked whether the Palestinian Authority was now backing Saddam. The demonstrators, he said, sought simply to express their opposition to war in the region.

"Our region needs the breath of peace and not drums of war," Erekat said. "Our conflict must be solved peacefully and the Iraqi situation must also be solved peacefully."

Israelis, meanwhile, feared Iraqi missile attacks on their cities if the United States strikes against Iraq. In Jerusalem's largest shopping mall, dozens of Israelis lined up to get gas masks. Most of Israel's 6.6 million people have received gas masks from the military over the years.

Israel's Defense Ministry is to award a contract in the next few weeks for production of an improved gas mask with a battery-operated air pump and a more comfortable fit, especially for people with beards, ministry spokeswoman Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi said.

The first of the new masks, which Israel has been working for years to develop, will be ready by late spring, she said.

Last month, a Defense Ministry expert, Esther Krasner, told an Israeli newspaper, that only one-third of the type of gas masks distributed in recent years are effective.

Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital, which has a staff well-drilled in treating victims of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks, is preparing to take in several hundred victims of chemical and biological weapons attacks.

The hospital said it could treat Israelis wounded at home as well as American soldiers injured in Iraq if needed, spokeswoman Yael Bossem-Levy said.

Israel this week went into a higher stage of alert, codenamed "Red Hail."

Hundreds of American soldiers are in place in southern Israel for joint maneuvers to prepare anti-missile defenses in case Iraq will strike Israeli cities as it did in 1991. At the time, Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel.

Preliminary exercises have begun and a live-fire drill is planned, involving two anti-missile systems, the American-made Patriot and the Arrow, developed by Israel and the United States. U.S. soldiers have brought Patriot anti-missile batteries with them and are to remain in Israel until the end of any war on Iraq.

In recent days, American military commanders, including Gen. Charles Simpson of the U.S. European command, have visited Israel to smooth communication between the two country's militaries, U.S. Embassy spokesman Paul Patin said.

Gen. Charles Wald, the newly appointed deputy commander of the U.S. European command, is headed to the region next week.

By Jason Keyser