Gunmen kill Israeli in West Bank shooting attack

:: By TIA GOLDENBERG || Associated Press Writer :: JERUSALEM – Gunmen killed an Israeli man in a shooting attack in the West Bank on Thursday as local attention was focused on Christmas celebrations in nearby Bethlehem.

The assailants have not been caught but security forces are treating the incident as an attack by Palestinian militants, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Israel Radio identified the man as a 45-year-old resident of a nearby Israeli settlement.

Shooting attacks were once commonplace on routes around the West Bank but have now become rare. The Israeli military has kept many roads in the area off-limits to Palestinian drivers in restrictions imposed after similar attacks against Israelis.

The West Bank has been largely quiet in recent years, thanks both to action by Israel's military against armed Palestinian groups and the increasing control of security forces loyal to the moderate government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

That relative quiet allowed holiday celebrations to go ahead without incident in Bethlehem, where thousands of locals and visitors thronged the square outside Jesus' traditional birthplace Thursday.

Earlier in the day, about 200 Israeli teenagers soon to be drafted sent a letter to Israel's defense minister, saying they won't enforce any military orders to dismantle settlements in the West Bank because that violates Jewish law.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to slow construction in the West Bank has provoked anger in the largely religious settler community.

The teenagers, students at religious high schools, said their paramount loyalty is to Jewish religious law and not to that of the state. Several influential rabbis have urged religious soldiers to disobey any order to act against Jewish construction in the West Bank.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank as part of a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital. While violence has largely subsided, there are still local protests mainly targeting Israel's West Bank security barrier.

On Thursday, South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu condemned Israel's arrest and indictment of one protest activist. The South African archbishop said the charges against Abdallah Abu Rahmeh were meant to "break the spirit" of Palestinians protesting the separation barrier.

Further complicating Israeli-Palestinian relations in the last three years has been the fate of Sgt. Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza by Hamas militants. There have recently been signs that a deal swapping the soldier for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners could be close.

In Damascus, senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said the militant group is currently studying Israel's latest offer and will deliver its answer "next week at the latest."