Five Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded Thursday in a Palestinian drive-by shooting outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, The Jerusalem Post reported.
But AFP quoted an army spokesman as saying that the number of injuries was four.
The soldiers were hurt in an attack on the Kfar Darom settlement in the central Gaza Strip, the spokesman said, despite a cease-fire both sides had pledged to respect two days earlier.
The paper said that the soldiers sustained minor shrapnel wounds when Palestinians in a passing vehicle fired five anti-tank grenades at them.
There have been sporadic gun battles in the vicinity all afternoon, the daily added.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is due to convene a snap mini-cabinet meeting Thursday night to discuss Israel's "response to breaches" of a fragile truce after a female Jewish settler was shot dead in a drive-by shooting near Bethlehem, a spokesman for the premier said.
"It will be a meeting of the 'kitchen' cabinet," the spokesman, Ranaan Gissen, told AFP. "It will take place this evening."
The kitchen cabinet comprises an inner core of Sharon, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
"I regret that the Palestinian Authority has not honored its [cease-fire] pledge," the Haaretz daily quoted Sharon as saying after a woman was shot dead and her husband seriously wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car near Bethlehem.
The Al Aqsa Brigades, the military wing of Fateh movement, claimed responsibility for the killing.
Another group considered close to Fateh, the Popular Army Front-Return Battalions, claimed responsibility for three other anti-Israeli attacks in the West Bank, in which four Palestinians and two Jewish settlers were wounded.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post said Thursday that a meeting between Arafat and Peres was cancelled following the settler's killing.
Sharon reportedly spoke overnight with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and told him Arafat's recently declared cease-fire was not taking root in the field, said the paper.
An official in Sharon's office said that efforts were underway to convene a security committee meeting among Israeli, Palestinian, and CIA officials - perhaps at the same time or even before the Peres-Arafat meeting - that would attempt to restart security coordination between the two sides.
This followed a midnight meeting in Gaza on Sunday night among Arafat and Sharon's son, Omri, and Foreign Minister Director General Avi Gil, said the post.
At that meeting, according to a senior diplomatic source, Sharon and Gil reiterated to Arafat what the prime minister said in the Knesset earlier that day, namely that if he would implement a cease-fire, Israel would withdraw from Area A, end initiated military strikes, and ease up on various restrictions clamped on the Palestinians.
"Arafat does not trust what his aides tell him," the diplomatic official said, "so Sharon wanted to make sure he heard the message from his son."
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began in September 2000.
AFP's latest death tally comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 624 Palestinians, and 167 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
According to Amnesty International, Israeli soldiers have killed roughly 100 Palestinian children, nearly all in situations where the safety of the occupation forces was in no immediate danger - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
