Israeli troops killed in Gaza

Militants struck near the Egyptian border with a ton of explosives.
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian militants staged their deadliest assault since the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat on Sunday, detonating a massive underground bomb near the Egyptian border that killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded 10 others.
It was the worst day of violence for the Israeli army since May, when 11 soldiers were killed in Gaza Strip attacks. Those attacks sparked a massive counterstrike that left more than 40 Palestinians dead.
Coming after a week of increasing tension in Gaza, Sunday's violence rattled the relative calm both sides have been struggling to maintain as Palestinians prepare to elect a new president next month.
"These groups are clearly breaking the quiet," said one Israeli military official who spoke on the condition that he not be named. "These are people who are not interested in keeping things quiet. We have to see who is behind this."
The bomb struck an Israeli checkpoint along the Egyptian border, one of the most volatile flashpoints in the region. Soon after dark, militants detonated more than a ton of explosives packed into a half-mile-long tunnel and then opened fire on the soldiers.
Responsibility
Two groups claimed joint responsibility for the operation -- Fatah Hawks, a splinter group of Arafat's main political group, and Hamas, led by Islamic militants.
Last week, Hamas used another tunnel to stage a deadly ambush on the Gaza Strip's northern border with Israel that killed one Israeli soldier.
Hamas spokesman Moshir al Masri suggested the attack was meant in part to send a warning to Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate former prime minister likely to win the Jan. 9 election to succeed Arafat as president of the Palestinian authority.
"This sends a message to everybody who tries to seek a peace settlement: Resistance is the only option for the Palestinian people," said al Masri.
A Fatah Hawks spokesman who identified himself only as Abu al Majd said the strike "demonstrates that resistance to the occupation will continue and that we are capable of launching a major strike against the Zionist enemy."
Since Arafat's death a month ago, Abbas has been working to persuade Hamas and other militant groups to embrace a cease-fire so Palestinians could elect a new leader in relative calm. In an interview with The Washington Post last month, Abbas conceded that the rival groups were creating a "sort of chaos" in Gaza, making it difficult for Palestinian leaders to control the violence.
Hamas officials initially suggested that they would scale back their operations, but the group has continued to fire mortars and homemade rockets at Israeli settlements.
Israeli leaders have suggested that they would do what they could to ease restrictions on Palestinians as they prepare for the election, but have continued to launch nightly raids across the West Bank and Gaza that have heightened tensions. Earlier Sunday, at least seven schoolchildren were injured at a school Palestinian officials said was hit by Israeli tank fire.
Girl dies
On Saturday, a 7-year-old Palestinian girl in the southern Gaza Strip was killed by Israeli soldiers who said they were firing on militants in Khan Yunis.
On Friday, Israel unsuccessfully tried to assassinate a militant leader by firing a missile at his car in the Gaza Strip.
The latest cycle of violence presents both sides with their greatest challenge since Arafat's death. In the past, Israel has denounced Palestinian leaders for failing to rein in extremists and launched deadly retaliatory strikes.
Last May, Israel staged a massive assault on the Rafah refugee camp along the Egyptian border after 11 of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza Strip in three days. At the time, Israeli leaders declared Rafah a "gateway to terror" that contained a network of tunnels used to shuttle weapons and militants in and out of the area.