Emmanuel, West Bank ? In an elaborate ambush, Palestinians disguised as Israeli soldiers set off a bomb to stop a bus Tuesday near a Jewish settlement and then fired on its passengers as they scrambled to escape. Seven people were killed and 14 wounded.

The ambush was the first deadly attack on Israeli civilians since June 20.

Several militant groups rushed to claim responsibility for the attack, similar to one Dec. 12 that killed 11 people in the same place the entrance to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement of Emmanuel, between the West Bank towns of Qalqilya and Nablus.

Witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion as the armored bus, traveling a regular route between Emmanuel and another ultra-Orthodox town inside Israel, Bnei Brak, neared the settlement entrance.

The blast was followed by smaller grenade explosions and bursts of automatic fire that lasted for several minutes. The witnesses said three to four gunmen dressed in Israeli army uniforms opened fire on the passengers as they tried to escape.

The militants fled and were pursued by army helicopters.

Rachel Gross, a 17-year-old high school student, said the bus lurched into the air when the bomb went off. “I got down under the seats, as fast as I could, because the terrorists began firing bursts and throwing grenades, it went on and on it seemed like eternity,” she said while visiting the wounded at a hospital. She was not hurt.

Moshe Avraham Cohen, in charge of security for the settlement, said he was in his office when he heard the explosion, then drove to the scene in his armored car, only to find it eerily quiet.

“I opened the car door a bit. Suddenly I saw three soldiers at the side of the bus. I was happy, seeing they had already arrived. I was going to ask them if they needed help, and before I could get the words out they shot at me,” he said.

He said he sped away.

In more than 21 months of fighting, 1,758 people have been killed on the Palestinian side, and 572 on the Israeli side, including those who died in Tuesday’s attack.

The most recent fatal attack on Israeli civilians occurred June 20, when a gunman killed five Israelis in the Jewish settlement of Itamar, near Nablus in the northern West Bank.

The lull in attacks was widely seen in Israel as evidence that the policy of reoccupying the Palestinian Authority’s autonomous zones was the best method for preventing attacks on Israelis.

“If we had not been there, we would have had 12, or 10 attacks rather than one,” said Ranaan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

He said that until the Palestinians unify their security services and use them to “eradicate terrorism … we will have to be deployed in those areas where we are in order to stop this wave of terrorist activity.”