A car carrying Palestinian Fateh activists blew up near the West Bank town of Nablus on Friday when a grenade went off by accident inside the vehicle, killing one of them, reports said.
One of the men in the car was holding a bag full of grenades when one of the devices went off, Haaretz and Reuters quoted a Palestinian source as saying.
"There was an explosion in the Balata refugee camp. There is one person dead and we still don't know the details but we are investigating," Nablus Mayor Mahmoud Aloul said.
Palestinian hospital officials in Nablus said the dead man was in the car and two other passengers were severely wounded. Three bystanders were lightly wounded, they said.
Witnesses at the scene said the passengers were known to be activists within the mainstream Fateh movement.
Some witnesses originally suspected that the blast was the work of Israeli forces, but the Palestinian source said that was not the case, according to the report.
The Israeli army denied any involvement, calling it a "work accident."
HAMAS, JIHAD CLAIM HADERA ATTACK
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have both claimed responsibility for this afternoon's attack next to Hadera's central bus station.
The two suicide bombers were killed when their car rammed and exploded next to Egged bus number 841 en route from Tel Aviv to Kiryat Shmona.
Almost 40 Israelis were wounded in the attack - two of them moderately and the remainder suffered light wounds.
Hizbollah's Al Manar satellite channel television said that Islamic Jihad's Jerusalem Brigade carried out the attack, but Hamas sources in Gaza said their organization was responsible, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The paper said that the public transportation bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Kiryat Shmona was rammed by the attacker's car on Maccabi Street near the city's central bus station, quoting a spokesperson for Egged bus company.
Hadera was hit by a similar attack last November 22, when two Israelis were killed and more than 60 wounded in a bus bombing.
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera on the same day quoted Hamas' spiritual leader, Ahmad Yassin, as saying that Palestinians "will reach the enemies wherever they are."
Earlier, Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded two soldiers traveling in an army vehicle near Kfar Uja, north of Jericho.
The Jerusalem Post said medics treated the soldiers at the scene, quoting Army Radio.
THREE PALESTINIANS INJURED IN NEW ISRAELI INCURSION
Al Jazeera satellite channel reported that three Palestinians were injured when Israeli troops entered Friday morning PA-controlled areas in the Gaza Strip and shelled Palestinian posts there.
The station quoted the head of the Palestinian national security forces in north Gaza, Brigadier Saeb Al Ajez.
HAMAS CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR TRUCK BOMB, ISRAELI TANK DESTROYED IN MINE ATTACK
The Palestinian Hamas movement has claimed responsibility for booby-trapping a truck that exploded in the Gaza Strip early Friday without causing injuries.
An army spokesman confirmed that a blast had taken place, but did not know about injuries.
Israel Radio said no one was hurt, and that the circumstances were unclear.
Hamas said in a statement that the bomber, Hussein Abu Nassr, was killed in the attack, which took place in Martyrs Junction (known to Israelis as Netzarim).
Meanwhile, a previously unknown organization calling itself the "Adnan Azzam" group claimed responsibility for the blasting an Israeli tank by detonating a mine in Rafah the same day.
BODY OF MISSING ISRAELI FOUND
The body of Yossi Alfasi, 46, missing since Wednesday, was found earlier Friday in a dry riverbed between the city of Tulkarm and the town of Taibe in the West Bank.
The body was burned and mutilated, according to police investigators quoted by the Jerusalem Post.
Alfasi was last seen at Wednesday morning when he met with a Palestinian building subcontractor at a building site in the northern Samaria community of Ginot Shomron.
Police arrested two of the subcontractors' employees in the nearby village of Azun on Thursday on suspicion of involvement in the disappearance, said the daily.
JORDAN, PALESTINE AGREE ON MITCHELL REPORT AS BASIS FOR PEACE EFFORTS
During their meeting on Thursday in Amman, Jordan's King Abdullah and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat welcomed the recommendations of the Mitchell report,said Jordan's official Petra news agency.
The agency said the leaders felt the recommendations complemented the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative, and stressed the need to find a mechanism that would ensure the implementation of all the report's proposals.
Petra said the two leaders praised the American stand regarding the Mitchell report, calling, at the same time, for a direct American role in carrying out its recommendations.
The king reiterated the need for an immediate end to Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and an end the policy of siege and blockade, while affirming that the implementation of the international resolutions was
the only way to reach a comprehensive and just peace and achieve security and stability for the peoples of the region, said the agency.
The two leaders lauded European support for the initiatives aiming at ending the conflict in the Palestinian territories and resuming the peace process.
ISRAELI ARMY CHIEF SPEAKS OF WAR
In tandem with the ceasefire call, Israeli soldiers were given orders not to make pre-emptive attacks on Palestinians -- guidelines which 48 hours later appeared to be testing the patience of army chief Shaul Mofaz, said Reuters.
"The Israeli government decided on a ceasefire that has yet to be honored by the Palestinians," Mofaz said in a speech.
"As long as the political echelon sticks to the decision, we will give it every chance. But for Israeli soldiers, who have been engaged in armed conflict for months, it is a real war."
Palestinians termed Sharon's ceasefire appeal a public relations ploy, aimed at drawing attention away from his rejection of a key element of the inquiry committee's report -- a total freeze on Jewish settlement construction work.
"There has been no (Palestinian) order to cease fire," Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres complained on Thursday. "There have been orders constantly to step up and encourage (firing)."
The Palestinian cabinet, in a statement after its weekly meeting on Thursday, accused the "Sharon-Peres" government of "starting its usual maneuvers to destroy the report" by the commission chaired by former US senator George Mitchell.
The report said a ceasefire should be followed by confidence-building measures and a cooling off period leading to a resumption of peacemaking.
ISRAELI ARMY: ARAFAT WON'T AGREE TO INTERIM DEAL, LEVEL OF VIOLENCE TO RISE
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will continue for many months, maybe even years, in its current form, although the number of casualties is expected to rise and the methods used by both sides are likely to intensify, according to a strategic evaluation of the situation by the Israeli army, cited by Haaretz.
The army predicts that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat "will refuse to negotiate a long-term interim agreement with Israel and will insist on a permanent status agreement under which a Palestinian state will be established within the pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and with the right of return for the refugees."
According to the report, despite the fact that Arafat would rather leave this to the next generation of Palestinian leaders than give up on these beliefs, Israel must continue to see him as the one who can bring about a "steady pacification" of the conflict. The PA is far from collapse and even if its security forces are not in control of all the population, Arafat still has a high degree of control over the heads of these forces.
According to the authors' evaluation of the situation, Israel must endeavor to disassociate the Palestinian conflict from the conflict with its northern neighbors -- Syria and Lebanon -- by efficient, but selective, responses to any provocative acts by Hizbollah.
Syria does not want a war with Israel and the air force's strike against a Syrian radar station just outside of Beirut in April left a deep impression on Damascus, which saw it as just the start of what Israel can do, they claim - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
