Bomb kills two Islamic Jihad officials in Lebanon

SIDON, Lebanon, May 26 (Reuters) - A senior Islamic Jihad official and his brother were killed in southern Lebanon on Friday when their car blew up in a blast the Palestinian group blamed on Israel.

An Israeli military source said he was unaware of any involvement by the Jewish state in the attack on Mahmoud Majzoub, known as Abu Hamze, and his brother Nidal, also an Islamic Jihad member, in the port of Sidon.

But the group, the main Palestinian faction to ignore a 15-month-old truce with Israel, vowed revenge.

"This is an Israeli attack and a dangerous escalation," Islamic Jihad official Ali Abu Shahine told Reuters in Beirut.

"Israel will be held responsible for this attack, which crosses red lines by targeting officials outside the Palestinian territories and that changes things."

The bomb was planted in a vehicle which both men were about to travel in. When the ignition was turned, it exploded, security sources said, reducing the car to a charred mass of twisted metal and showering the area with debris.

Abu Hamze's brother was killed instantly, while he succumbed to his wounds hours later in hospital, medical sources and Islamic Jihad officials said.

Islamic Jihad, dedicated to Israel's destruction, has killed more than 30 people in suicide bombings inside the Jewish state since a ceasefire started, including one that left 11 people dead in Tel Aviv on April 17.

Abu Ahmed, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad armed wing in Gaza, said there would be no retaliation outside Israel and the Palestinian territories but warned of "violent and painful reactions inside the depth of the Zionist entity".

Several Palestinian militants and officials of Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrilla group have been killed in Lebanon in recent years in attacks their organisations have blamed on Israel.

The most prominent was then Hizbollah chief Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi, who was killed in 1992 when an Israeli helicopter fired a missile at his car in southern Lebanon.

Jihad Jibril, son of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command chief, was killed in Beirut by an explosion in his car in 2002. Two Hizbollah officials died in similar blasts in 2003 and 2004.

Israeli forces have repeatedly targeted Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank with deadly missile strikes and arrest raids.

Lebanon has seen a string of bombings and assassinations against anti-Syria politicians and journalists since the February 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.