By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - Two Palestinian gunmen attacked an army outpost in the West Bank early Thursday, killing two Israeli soldiers before troops fatally shot the attackers. In the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), fire from an Israeli helicopter killed two Palestinian nurses at a home for the elderly.

AP Photo Reuters Photo Slideshow: Mideast Conflict Four Dead After West Bank Base Attack (AP Video)

In northern Israel, police killed an Arab citizen after he stabbed an officer.

The violence came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) was building a coalition after his Likud Party won last week's election. The government taking shape is likely to feature hawkish parties demanding even harsher measures against the Palestinians.

Sharon has said he wants to team up with the dovish Labor Party in a centrist "national unity" government, but so far Labor has refused. Labor lost considerable support in its 20 months in Sharon's previous government, perceived as giving legitimacy to Sharon's escalating military measures against the Palestinians.

Without Labor, Sharon might form a coalition with hawkish and Orthodox Jewish parties, where sentiment is strong for harsher measures to stop Palestinian attacks, including the expulsion of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites).

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked toArafat's Fatah (news - web sites) movement, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction, said the attack on the Israeli post on Mount Gerizim, which overlooks the West Bank city of Nablus, was a joint effort. Soldiers were drilling for such an attack at the time, Israeli radio stations said.

In Gaza City, dozens of doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers dressed in their white uniforms led a procession of more than 1,000 mourners at the funeral of the two Palestinian nursing home attendants killed by Israeli helicopter fire.

Hospital officials said the two men were in the home at the time. Two other Palestinians were wounded by shots to the chest and were hospitalized in intensive care, hospital officials said.

The army said that the home was not a deliberate target and that the helicopter fire was intended to deter militants in the area who often lob rockets at a nearby Israeli village.

In northern Israel, an Arab man was shot and killed after he stabbed and lightly wounded a policeman and tried to steal another officer's gun, said police spokesman Gil Kleiman.

The shooting occurred along a major road where security has been very high after Palestinians carried out several suicide bombings there in the past 28 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

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