Gaza Fighters Attack Fuel Depot Inside Israel

JERUSALEM, April 9 -- Palestinian gunmen raided a fuel terminal on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza on Wednesday, killing two Israeli civilians and sparking reprisal attacks that left at least seven Palestinians dead.

The attack marked a rare incursion from the Gaza Strip into Israel, with the fighters breaching an extraordinarily tight security cordon that has reduced to a trickle the flow of people and goods across the border. The day's violence also ended a period of relative calm since early March, when Hamas rocket fire prompted a large-scale Israeli operation in the territory that resulted in the deaths of more than 120 Palestinians.

The fighters burst into the terminal at Nahal Oz, which supplies Gaza with fuel, just after 3 p.m. Wednesday and began firing, according to a statement from the Israel Defense Forces. They killed two terminal workers, both of whom sustained multiple bullet wounds. Just before the gunmen attacked at Nahal Oz, fighters within Gaza shelled the area with mortars in what Israeli officials said was probably a diversionary tactic.

Nahal Oz is just a mile east of Gaza City, the narrow coastal strip's major population center.

Israeli forces killed two of the fighters while they were still in Israel, and officials said two others retreated back into Gaza. The Israeli military reported that several people involved in the attack were later hit and killed in an airstrike.

The strikes, along with artillery fire, continued late into the evening Wednesday. Palestinian hospital officials said that of the five Palestinians killed during those attacks, one appeared to be a gunman and the rest civilians.

Islamic Jihad and two other, smaller armed factions -- the Popular Resistance Committees and the Mujaheddin Brigades -- said their fighters had carried out the fuel terminal attack, claiming that it was in response to Israel's "arrogance." The groups said they intended to capture Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips to win the release of Palestinian prisoners.

The attack at Nahal Oz followed a shootout early Wednesday in the central Gazan city of Khan Younis. An Israeli soldier and a Hamas gunman were killed.

A Hamas spokesman denied the group had been involved in the Nahal Oz attack, but lauded it as courageous and vowed further strikes.

Despite the denial, Israel said it blamed Hamas, which has controlled the territory since it seized sole power 10 months ago. The armed Islamist group won Palestinian elections in 2006 but failed to maintain a power-sharing arrangement with the rival Fatah movement, which dominates the Palestinian Authority and has strong support in the West Bank.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Hamas would "bear the consequences" for the attack, which spokesman Arye Mekel said was proof that the group "really doesn't care for its own people."

"This is the same group that was complaining we were not sending enough fuel. Now that we're sending enough, they try to blow the place up," Mekel said.

Mekel said it was not clear how soon the terminal would be ready to reopen. Although the terminal did not sustain major damage, Mekel said Israeli officials would have to review security at the terminal and investigate how the breach occurred.

Wednesday's attack came just as workers at the terminal finished the day's delivery of European Union-funded fuel for Gaza's power plant.

Gaza has been under a tight economic blockade since June, with only basic humanitarian supplies allowed into the territory. Fuel has been in especially short supply. The territory's 1.5 million people have to wait in lines that last 24 hours or more to fill up their gas tanks, thousands of businesses have had to shut their doors, and hospitals report that the shortages are putting their patients at risk. United Nations and E.U. officials have called on Israel to lift the siege, saying it unfairly punishes Palestinian civilians.

Special correspondent Islam Abdulkarim in Gaza City contributed to this report.