Hamas Calls For Revenge In Killing of Palestinians

Weekend Incidents Leave Nine Dead in Territories

JERUSALEM, April 22 -- Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians in incidents Sunday in the West Bank, prompting Hamas officials to call on their movement's military wing to respond "with all possible means of resistance."

Following the most violent day between Israelis and Palestinians in weeks, Israeli soldiers killed two wanted men in Nablus during a morning arrest operation after troops came under fire, military officials said.

Hours later, soldiers mortally wounded a Palestinian teenager near Ramallah after a crowd hurled molotov cocktails and rocks at a patrol. Military officials said the 17-year-old boy was shot as he prepared to throw a molotov cocktail at the troops, but Palestinian witnesses said he was throwing rocks.

The killings brought to nine the number of Palestinians killed over the weekend, most of them members of armed groups.

Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip have responded by firing crude rockets into southern Israel, a spike after several weeks of declining attacks. In all, five rockets have fallen in and around the city of Sderot since Saturday, although no injuries have been reported. One Palestinian was killed in an airstrike Saturday in Gaza.

In a statement faxed to news agencies, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "The blood of our people is not cheap." He called on the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, and "the Palestinian resistance groups to be united in the trench of resistance and to use all possible means of resistance to respond to the massacres."

In an unrelated event, an Arab Israeli lawmaker, Azmi Bishara, resigned his seat in parliament Sunday amid a criminal investigation. Israel's Justice Ministry sealed his parliamentary office after he submitted his resignation at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, where he has fled.

Bishara, 50, is a prominent Arab intellectual and had been a member of Israel's parliament for 11 years. Balad, the party he helped found, has lobbied strenuously for equal rights for the Jewish state's Arab citizens, who make up roughly a fifth of the population. The party holds three seats in Israel's 120-member parliament.

In recent months, Bishara joined other Arab Israeli leaders in publishing "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel" and "The Democratic Constitution," manifestos that call for giving Arab lawmakers the right to veto laws and for changing the flag to acknowledge minority populations, among other measures. Israel's flag bears the Star of David, which offends many of Israel's Muslim and Christian citizens.

Bishara was acquitted previously of having illegal contacts with Syria and of charges that he praised the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, which like Hamas denies Israel's right to exist. An Israeli court has barred the news media from discussing details of the current investigation of him.

But Bishara, who lives in Nazareth, has told Arab media since fleeing the country this month that the inquiry involves financial and national security matters. By resigning from parliament, Bishara loses immunity from prosecution. He has told Arab media that he fears a long trial and might not return to Israel.

In his resignation letter to Israel's parliamentary speaker, Dalia Itzik, Bishara wrote, "I can look back and say with satisfaction that I contributed to the development of a new parliamentary discussion regarding the Arab population as a collective nation and the concept of citizenship."

Also Sunday, Israel's finance minister, Abraham Hirchson, suspended himself from official duties pending the outcome of an investigation into whether he failed to report a case of embezzlement while he was head of a labor union four years ago.

The charges stem from allegations that a union official informed Hirchson that he took $1.3 million in union funds to pay a brother's gambling debt. Hirchson, the most recent in a series of senior Israeli politicians to face a corruption inquiry, fired the man but did not report the missing money, according to authorities.