DATE=04/27/02

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ISRAEL / PALESTINIANS (L)

NUMBER=2-289162

BYLINE=IRRIS MAKLER

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: At least four Israelis, including one child, were killed when Palestinian gunmen infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. As Irris Makler reports from Jerusalem, at least seven other people were wounded in the attack.

TEXT: The Israeli army says the gunmen made their way into the West Bank settlement of Adura, near the volatile city of Hebron.

An army spokeswoman says the gunmen entered two homes, opening fire on the families inside. She says that one couple was shot while still asleep.

An Israeli medical official at the site says the wounded were taken to a hospital for treatment. They included three children, two of them brothers.

The fate of the gunmen is not clear. The army spokeswoman says soldiers completed house-to-house searches in the settlement, and then concentrated a wider search in the surrounding area.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mike Sofer expressed horror at another attack on Jewish civillians.

/// SOFER ACT ///

Today, as you know is the Shabbat, Saturday, holy Sabbath day of rest, and here they were going round, doing the things one does on a Sabbath, and here they were butchered by a criminal of the worst order.

/// END ACT ///

The attack came as the Israeli military was in the fourth week of an anti-terror operation in the West Bank, aimed at putting an end to attacks against civilians.

It also occurred only hours after the United Nations agreed to delay by one day the arrival of a fact-finding team, which is to investigate the events surrounding a fierce battle earlier this month between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops in the Jenin refugee camp.

The U-N team is now expected to arrive late Sunday.

Israeli Cabinet members are scheduled to vote at their regular Sunday morning meeting on whether to cooperate with the investigation.

Israeli officials have expressed concern that the U-N team will focus only on the destruction in Jenin, and ignore Israel's charge that the camp was a haven for terrorists.

Israel says 23 Palestinian suicide bombers from the Jenin camp killed dozens of Israelis.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army says soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian militant at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The army says the man was trying to plant explosives in the compound of the church when he

was killed.

About 200 Palestinians, including some gunmen, have been hiding in the church for more than three-weeks.

They are surrounded by Israeli tanks and troops.

So far, negotiations between the Israeli army and Palestinian officials have failed to end the siege. (Signed)

NEB/IM/MB/DW/TW