The shooting near Hebron occured at approximately 8:30 P.M., west of the Halhul bridge. Three members of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) were riding westward on the Trans-Judea highway when they came under fire from short range.

The two dead are Major Cengiz Soytunc, of Turkey, and Katrine Brooks, a Swiss citizen. The injured man is Captain Huseyin Ozaslan, also Turkish. The injured observer suffered light wounds and was evacuated to Shaarei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem.

Ozaslan told Israel Radio that he clearly saw the attacker. He said that the man was armed in fatigues of the PA's security forces and was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.

"We shouted that we are observers, members of TIPH," he said. "But he did not hear us and continued to shoot."

He added that the gunman "emptied a whole magazine" into their car.

IDF sources said that the shooting occured from a southerly direction, inside territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

Shortly after the incident, shots were fired against an IDF position nearby. No soldiers were injured and the force returned fire.

Palestinian security sources tried to argue in talks with reporters yesterday that IDF soldiers killed the two observers. However, their claims were thwarted by the surviving observer's testimony.

THINK ABOUT IT, ISRAELI'S CONTROL THE AREA WITH A IRON FIST, WHERE'S THE KILLER?... HE COULD NOT HAVE GOTTEN AWAY SUROUNDED BY IDF. ISRAELI FASCIST DID A COVERUP....

IF YOU EMPTY A COUPLE OF CLIPS OF 7.62 ROUNDS INTO SOMEBODY THEY DON'T GET "LIGHTLY WOUNDED" THAT GUY IS A SPY THAT DID THE KILLING AND FAKED HIS "LIGHT WOUND" TO KEEP HIS COVER...

NEAR HEBRON 8:30PM TUES, 26 MAR 2002-Two TIPH observers were killed by the IDF, as they where tring to leave the area of Hebron late tuesday so they could relay the information they had just resieved,they were stoped.... The other man that was with them aka Capt. Hussein Osam Salam is a Israeli spy, that caried out the killing.This was reported by a under cover agent working as a IDF solder near Hebron that had given the TIPH observers a flash disk containing photos of israeli death camp hardware being installed under ground near the area of Hebron for Sharon's "FINAL SOLUTION" consisting of gas chambers and ovens set up in a assembly line FACTORY of DEATH to DISPOSE of the BODIES, OF THE UP COMING EXTERMANATION OF 1,000,000'S OF PALESTINIANS....

One person survived the attack and they ID'd the Palestinian security forces. And ovens and gas-chambers? I should not even comment on such lunacy. But, if the Israelis really wanted to get rid of the Palestinians as so many claim, they have more than enough fire-power to do it.

I am actually surprised that the death count is so low. You would think that an occupying army hell bent on killing as many Palestinians as possible would have managed to kill more than 1500 "rock throwers" in a year and a half.