"The Committee for Road Safety" claimed credit for the shooting in a Hebrew message to the media. A shadowy group with a similar name operated in Judea and Samaria a decade ago, with reported links to settler groups. But the group also later proved to have ties with the Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency, including involvement of the notorious provocateur and informant, Avishai Raviv, whose mission was to infiltrate right wing Jewish groups.

Condemnation across the political spectrum

"There is no benefit in murdering a baby." - Cabinet Minister Avigdor Lieberman

Even as the Police and others urged caution in assuming that a Jew pulled the trigger, last night's shooting has been harshly and universally condemned in Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office issued a statement "condemning all forms of terror" and pledging to "do everything possible to apprehend those responsible." Foreign Minister Peres said that "Israel will apprehend those who perpetrated the abominable murder near Tarkumiyah and will punish them to the fullest extent of the law."

The head of the YESHA settler leadership council, Benny Kashriel, said it was not certain that the attackers were settlers. However, he added that "This action is legally, ethically and religiously wrong and we condemn it."

Cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman of the nationalistic Israel Beitenu party also strongly denounced the killing. "There is no benefit in murdering a baby," he told Israel Radio Friday morning. "Something like this is horrible and harms Israel's interests."

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned that "this murder will have severe consequences which will escalate to terrorist attacks inside Israel as well," he said.

At the same time, Israelis from both the right and left said that the possibility of revenge attacks should have been anticipated after months of Palestinian attacks on Jewish drivers and their families. In Hebron yesterday, before the drive-by shooting, there were a series of Palestinian sniping attacks on Jewish civilians in the Hebron area, with several light injuries resulting.

The funeral procession started from a Hebron hospital and headed slowly toward the nearby village Idna village. According to an AP report, 1,000 Palestinians walked behind the bodies, which were wrapped in Palestinian flags, chanting, "Death to the settlers, death to America, death to Israel" and calling for an attack in Tel Aviv.

Palestinians seized on the events to justify the urgent need to send international observers to the region. West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub said the shooting proved that "settlers and settlements are cancers that should be removed."

The suggestion of a "third party" monitoring force acceptable to all sides was advanced by the G8 foreign ministers meeting in Genoa. Prime Minister Sharon has rejected the call, saying that Israel would accept at most a few observers from the American Central Intelligence Agency. Israel has claimed that, as in Lebanon, observers and "peacekeepers" would be ineffective and would serve as a cover for terrorists planning attacks. The credibility of international observers has been badly shaken by UNIFIL collaboration in the Huzbullah kidnapping of Israeli soldiers last October.

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