Terrorist attack on Israeli Kibbutz kills 5 injure, page-2

Five people were killed and three injured when terrorists infiltrated Kibbutz Metzer, near the Green Line, close to midnight Sunday and opened fire. Police sources said that the bodies of three adults and two children had been found.

According to initial reports, it appeared that the terrorists entered a home and opened fire, after first firing on kibbutz members walking from the dining room to their homes. Israel Radio later reported that three people were killed in a home and two near the dining room.

The security coordinator at the kibbutz spotted at least one of the terrorists and opened fire, but failed to hit him.

Large numbers of police and Border Police, who used flares to light up the area, searched the kibbutz after midnight, with the help of a helicopter, but it appeared that the terrorists had succeeded in fleeing the kibbutz.

Residents were confined to their homes and security forces imposed a blackout on the kibbutz, which is located on the Israeli side of the Green Line, north of Tul Karm.

"We are all closed up in our houses. We heard the shots and turned off the lights and shut the doors," kibbutz resident Oded Shahar told Channel Two television.

First-aid teams who rushed to the scene of the attack were barred from entering Metzer for more than an hour by security forces who feared that the terrorists might still be inside the kibbutz.

Initial reports had first spoken of one terrorist having infiltrated the kibbutz, but northern police chief Ya'akov Borovsky later told Israel Radio that based on the number of shots fired and the ballistics of the bullets, it was likely the attack had been carried out by more than one gunman