GAZA, Dec. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The Islamic Jihad (Holy War) claimed responsibility on Thursday for two suicide bomb attacks at an Israeli army checkpoint in the northern West Bank which killed one Israeli soldier, the al-Arabiya TV channel reported.

   Palestinian security sources and witnesses said a Palestinian woman blew herself up at around 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) at the Israeli army checkpoint near the village of Faron close to two Jewish settlements of Shavi Shormon and Inav south of the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.

   Upon the heel of the bombing, a Palestinian man blew himself upas an Israeli army jeep was approaching the checkpoint, killing one Israeli soldier and wounding three others aboard.   Seven Palestinians including a women and a child were lightly injured when Israeli soldiers opened fire at Palestinians waiting at the checkpoint following the bombings, witnesses said.

   The bloody attacks came against a backdrop of intensified Israeli efforts to enforce a buffer zone in the norther Gaza Strip to stop Palestinian militants firing rockets on Israel.

   Israeli artillery shells and airstrikes pounded northern Gazaon late Wednesday and early Thursday, killing one Palestinian militant and a teenager. 

   The Islamic Jihad has amounted suicide attacks on Israeli targets in the past. The group claimed responsibility for asuicide bomb attack in a shopping mall in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya on Dec. 5, which killed five Israelis and wounded over 30 others.  Enditem