A palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up when Israeli troops tried to search him at a roadblock in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing an Israeli soldier and at least two other Palestinians.The army said the roadblock had been set up in response to intelligence that a bomber was on his way to Israel to strike during the current Hanukkah holiday.Meanwhile, an Internet statement posted on Thursday made claims purportedly from Al Qaeda in Iraq that it had launched missiles at Israel from Lebanon as part of a “new attack” on the Jewish state. A senior Israeli security source questioned the claim. , saying that for it to be true, “it would mean that al Qaeda, a virulently anti-Shi’ite group, has penetrated the heartland of Hezbollah, a virulent Shi’ite group, on such a scale that it can mount a rocket salvo independently. Palestinians search for 3 British hostages in GazaGAZA: Palestinian security forces hunted on Thursday for a British human rights activist and her parents abducted in the Gaza Strip, but officials reported no immediate progress. Kate Burton (25), a worker at the Palestinian rightsgroup Al Mezan, was showing her parents around Rafah when they were kidnapped by gunmen on Wednesday. Palestinian authorities have so far failed to identify the kidnappers, security sources said.
