Israel soldiers killed two Palestinians in the Occupied Territories on Sunday, acording to hospital sources. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres spoke with his US counterpart, Colin Powell, hours after announcing new contacts with the Palestinians.
Maen Abu Lawi, 38, was fatally wounded and three other Palestinians slightly injured when Israeli troops opened fire on the group near an Israeli roadblock south of Nablus, hospital officials in Nablus said.
The shooting occurred as the small group of Palestinians, apparently frustrated at having to wait at an Israeli checkpoint inside the West Bank, walked through neighboring fields to avoid the control point.
The Israelis opened fire, said AFP, hitting Abu Lawi in the neck. He died later in Nablus hospital.
There have been reports of strip-searches and other humiliating measures at the control points, which may prompt some Palestinians to risk their lives trying to bypass them.
In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Mohamed Abu Arar, 13, was shot when a group of Palestinian youths pelted Israeli troops with stones. He was hit in the chest with a live bullet when the soldiers opened fire, and died shortly afterwards in Rafah Hospital, said the agency.
The two deaths bring the total number of those killed since the September 2000 start of the Intifada, or uprising against 34 years of occupation, to 722 including 555 Palestinians and 146 Israelis, according to AFP's tally.
Israel’s wounded number in the high hundreds, according to army sources, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society puts the number of Palestinians injured at over 14,000.
Amnesty International reported early this year that almost 100 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli soldiers, nearly all in situations where the occupation troops were under no immediate threat.
Earlier Sunday, Israel redoubled its attacks on the Occupied Territories by firing missiles at Khan Yunis, and clashes between resistance fighters and occupation troops later flared in Gaza.
The Israeli army fired missiles on a Palestinian position in Khan Yunis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, after the area was rattled by further violence following an overnight Israeli incursion during which a Palestinian activist was shot dead, reported AFP.
Three Palestinian civilians were wounded when a position used as security headquarters in Khan Yunis was destroyed by Israeli missiles, Palestinian security sources told the agency.
AFP said that the attack, confirmed by the army, came as a retaliation for seven mortar shells fired earlier on the nearby Gadid Jewish settlement, causing no injuries.
The agency also reported other incidents which shook the occupied Palestinian territories Saturday, when two Palestinian babies were badly wounded and two passengers were injured when a bus came under fire in occupied east Jerusalem.
The two Palestinian babies, aged three and seven months, were badly wounded by Israeli shooting at taxis in two separate incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian sources said.
Sources told Radio Israel that 3-month-old Firas Abu Mihmar, was wounded south of the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip when Israeli troops opened fire on the car in which he was traveling. The army spokesman denied the reports and said that soldiers had not fired in the area at the time.
And a 6-month-old boy from a village close to the West Bank town of Nablus was also seriously wounded by Israeli gunfire, Israel Radio reported Saturday. The sources said that Noor Odeh was traveling in a taxi with his mother when Israeli troops opened fire close to a roadblock. The baby was hit in the stomach by three bullets and underwent surgery at a hospital in Nablus. The occupation army had no immediate comment.
Palestinians also said Saturday that an army undercover unit near the West Bank city of Jenin had attempted to assassinate an activist from Palestinian Fateh movement, according to the paper.
The sources said that the 26-year-old activist, Ahmed Mustafa Besharet, was shot in the shoulder and moderately wounded by men wearing masks in the village of Tamoun.
Meanwhile, Haaretz reported an apparent Palestinian drive-by shooting of two Israelis traveling on an Egged bus.
A girl aged six and a 20-year-old man were wounded when shots were fired at the bus from a passing car near the Pisgat Ze'ev Jewish settlement in northern Jerusalem.
The paper also said that shooting attacks continued across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank overnight. Early Sunday morning, it said, several members of Force 17 presidential guard unit were wounded in a firefight with Israeli troops near Bitunia, west of Ramallah.
PERES DISCUSSES SITUATION WITH POWELL, SAYS THERE ARE CONTACTS WITH PALESTINIANS
US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday discussed with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres the latest security and political developments in the region in a bid to revive political dialogue with Palestinians, Israeli Radio said.
In a Saturday night telephone call, Powell expressed US support for Peres's initiative aimed at reviving political dialogue with the Palestinians in order to reach a ceasefire, according to the radio.
Peres had told Israel's Channel Two Television on Saturday that contacts were being held with the Palestinians on different levels in an effort to bring about a ceasefire.
Peres was referring to talks between Foreign Ministry Director General Avi Gil and senior Palestinian Authority officials such as Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) and Saeb Erekat, according to Haaretz.
Peres also said that he would meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat "in the near future" to discuss the implementation of a ceasefire.
"Even if [a date] has been set, I won't say so now because publication is the enemy of negotiations," Peres said, referring to a possible meeting with Arafat. "We will conduct them discreetly."
Al Jazeera satellite channel said that Arafat had conveyed to Peres through foreign mediators that he was ready to meet him whenver he sees appropriate.
Elsehwere on the diplomatic front, said AFP, Israeli public radio announced that Israel's Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon, and his Palestinian counterpart, Hikmat Zaid, would meet at Beit Dagan, near Tel Aviv, on Sunday in a bid to end a row threatening the distribution of food in the region.
Simhon and Zaid were scheduled to discuss a Palestinian embargo on a wide list of agricultural products from Israel, which was announced on Thursday in response to a 10-month blockade on Palestinian movement into Israel – Albawaba.com
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