Egyptian Gunmen Stage Three Raids into Israel

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A NEW WAR HAS BEGUN

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Gunmen killed seven people in southern Israel Thursday in three attacks along the Egyptian border, drawing Israeli accusations that militants from Gaza were responsible and that Cairo's new rulers were losing their grip on a porous frontier.

Israel said the assailants infiltrated from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip via Egypt's Sinai desert, despite stepped up efforts by Egyptian security forces in recent days to rein in Palestinian and Islamist radicals.

"This was a grave incident in which Israelis and Israeli sovereignty were harmed. Israel will respond accordingly," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. He was due to speak further on the most deadly attack in Israel since 2008 in a televised address at 7:30 p.m. (1630 GMT).

Concern was high in the Gaza Strip that Israel would launch retaliatory attacks. Egyptian security sources said it was unlikely the gunmen had come from Egyptian territory where border patrols had not detected any "suspicious movements."

Israel's military said the attacks on Highway 12 began when "terrorists shot at a bus on its way to (the city of) Eilat and then fired an anti-tank rocket at another vehicle. At the same time, a military patrol hit an explosive device."

"I saw two men in fatigues shooting at me," the bus driver, Benny Bilbaski, told Israel Radio. "I saw that there were wounded on the bus but I continued to drive on, looking straight not looking right or left. Once I got a kilometer past the area and I was out of range we took care of the wounded."

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said seven people were killed along the road, just meters from the border with Egypt. The military put the number of wounded at around 25.