BETHLEHEM, March 12: Israeli forces killed four Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, hours after the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers demanded a halt to all Israeli “aggression” as a condition for a ceasefire.

A source in Islamic Jihad, which lost three members, including a local leader, in the Bethlehem raid, vowed revenge and charged: “The Zionist enemy has no interest in calm.”

Islamic Jihad is among militant groups that mediator Egypt had hoped to coax into holding rocket fire from Gaza in a bid to bolster US-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Western-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

A senior Abbas aide, Saeb Erekat, condemned the Bethlehem killings, saying they “undermined efforts to reach a ceasefire”.

As part of any truce, Islamist Hamas — which seized control of Gaza in June after routing Abbas’s forces there — is demanding a say in the future functioning of the coastal territory’s border crossings, a condition rejected by Israel.

“There must be a commitment by Israel to end all acts of aggression against our people, assassinations, killings and raids, and lift the (Gaza) siege and reopen the crossings,” Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas’s administration in Gaza, said in a speech.

A truce, he said, should be “reciprocal, comprehensive and simultaneous”, approved by other factions, and apply to Gaza and the West Bank — territories where Palestinians seek statehood.

“We will not abandon you, our people in the West Bank,” Haniyeh said. “Aggression against you is aggression against us.” Hamas had previously been vague about whether it would insist on including the West Bank in any Gaza truce.

Before the Bethlehem killings, Israel appeared to rebuff the idea of halting West Bank operations, arguing that they are necessary to thwart attacks by Hamas and other groups.

AMBUSHED IN THEIR CAR: Witnesses said a team of Israeli commandos disguised as locals and riding in a taxi with Palestinian licence plates drove up to a car full of militants and sprayed it with bullets.

Reuters Television footage showed three dead men, sprawled out and bloody in the shattered vehicle. Another man lay on the tarmac as Palestinian passersby tried in vain to revive him.—Reuters