Three Palestinians opened fire with machineguns Tuesday in the Israeli town of Afula, killing one Israeli and wounding 30. The attack coincided with a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and retired general Anthony Zinni, said reports.
Four of the Afula victims were seriously wounded, reported Radio Israel.
Two of the attackers are thought to have been shot dead, and the fate of the third is still unknown.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack, in broad daylight and in the center of the town, came just hours after the Israeli army completed its withdrawal from the Palestinian town of Jenin in the West Bank, some 15 kilometers (10 miles) away.
It also coincided with a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and retired general Anthony Zinni.
The pair are on a mission to end the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, which so far has seen over 700 Palestinians killed, along with more than 190 Israelis.
ISRAEL'S LIMITED PULLBACK CALLED A 'SWINDLE'
The Israeli pullback, seen by the Israeli press as a goodwill gesture as the US mission started amid a renewed spurt of violence in the region, was denounced by the Palestinians as a "swindle" designed purely to score points with the Americans and of no real value, said AFP.
"This is a swindle. This is not a withdrawal, it's a redeployment, because Israeli forces are still surrounding Jenin," Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman told the agency.
"There are still checkpoints and tanks, there are still assassinations, entries into Palestinian villages and cities. Nothing has changed on the ground in the daily life of the Palestinians," he said.
"They did it because of the international pressure on Israel to withdraw" from Palestinian land, he said, referring to US-led calls for Israel to leave so-called Area A zones, which are ostensibly autonomous Palestinian areas.
The Israeli army said its forces had left Palestinian self-rule areas in Jenin at 5:00am (0300 GMT) without incident, but continued to surround the town.
"Our forces deployed during the night to positions from where they can continue to protect the safety of the Israelis," a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Sharon was taking Burns and Zinni on a helicopter tour of the boundaries between Israel and the West Bank to emphasize the security concerns of the Jewish state, faced with 14 months of a Palestinian uprising against continued Israeli occupation and settlement of their land.
Sharon, who took office promising to secure the personal safety of ordinary Israelis within a short period of time, recently told his Likud Party inner circle to prepare for a long struggle.
Any peace negotiations face a hard barrier in the form of the settlements, of which Sharon is a strong supporter.
According to the UK-based magazine The Economist, Israel has "flouted" the 1993 Oslo peace accords by moving tens of thousands of its citizens - many of them well-armed - onto land seized from Palestinian owners in 1967.
Israel has been on high alert since it assassinated a top military mastermind of the hardline Islamic group Hamas on Friday, one of an estimated 60 such "targeted killings" by occupation forces since the fighting began.
Hamas, as well as several other militant groups, vowed "hard and immediate" revenge against targets inside Israel, in the wake of the latest assassination.
The "targeted killing" came hard on the heels of a period of calm following the terror attack on the United States in September, which galvanized Washington into becoming more involved in the region.
Army radio said police had been on the look-out for a group of Palestinians in the north who were planning an attack.
Zinni and Burns were later to meet Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, before holding talks with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Wednesday.
Their mission started as the territories erupted in renewed fighting after weeks of relative calm.
Thirteen Palestinians, including six children, and an Israeli soldier were killed since Thursday, dampening hopes for the outcome of the peace mission.
Last week, five Palestinian schoolboys were killed by a bomb which the Israeli army has admitted to planting in the Gaza Strip.
According to the UK-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International, Israeli troops killed nearly 100 Palestinian children in only the first few months of the uprising – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
