A pair of gun-toting Palestinians dressed as women were killed by Israeli soldiers yesterday after spraying bullets at a memorial service for a pregnant settler mom and her four daughters slain in an earlier ambush.
The disguised terror thugs got close enough to the mourners along a Gaza Strip road to start shooting and send the panicked crowd – which included moms with babies still in their arms – scrambling for cover under cars and behind concrete road barriers.
One terrified mother struggled to shield her baby in its carriage as she ran for refuge behind an armored bus parked nearby.
The gunmen were eventually killed by Israeli soldiers who had been on hand to protect the crowd, officials said. No Israelis were hurt.
The militant extremist group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. One media report said as many as three gunmen, and maybe more, may have been involved in the terror assault.
TV crews captured some of the deadly drama, which occurred on the same section of road leading to the Gush Katif settlement where the woman and her children had been tragically killed last Sunday.
The mom had been on her way to urge a “no” vote on a referendum on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to dismantle settlements like her family’s in the Gaza Strip.
The family’s station wagon – which bore a bumper sticker that read, “From here we will not move” – had first been stopped by a barrage of bullets along the road. The gunmen then walked up to the car and pumped more bullets into each of the tragic victims’ heads at point-blank range.
The thugs even shot the 34-year-old mom’s swollen belly. She had been eight months’ pregnant.
The little girls ranged in age from 2 to 11.
“The terrorists came and looked to make sure everyone was dead, and then they started to run,” said one shaken Israeli soldier who witnessed the bloodbath.
The gunmen were later killed by soldiers.
The bloodshed helped roundly defeat Sharon’s plan at the polls later that same day.
With Post Wire Services