Palestinian attack suspected after two Israeli policemen shot dead
• Prisoner-swap deadline on eve of PM's departure• Gazan militants captured 22-year-old three years ago
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 16 March 2009 01.42 GMT
Article history
Two Israeli policemen were shot dead in the West Bank yesterday in what Israeli police said they suspected was a Palestinian attack.No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting, which took place near the mainly agricultural settlement of Massuah, in an area of the West Bank close to the border with Jordan that is under Israeli security control. "The main suspicion points to a nationalistic motive," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.The attack came as the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.