Two Palestinians were killed, and hundreds injured Friday in separate clashes with the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Their deaths have brought to 104 the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza as well as Arab towns inside the Green Line since September 28th.
Shadi Mohamad al-Wawi, 22, was driving a car in southern Hebron when he was fatally shot in the head, Palestinian police said.
Israeli representatives in the Israeli-Palestinian liaison office in the region told Palestinian officials that Israeli soldiers had opened fire after being the target of Palestinian shooting, according to the same source.
The second victim had been killed earlier Friday in the same city when Israeli soldiers fired at a group of demonstrators trying to approach a Jewish settlement in the center of the Hebron.
In Gaza Strip, an explosive device went off late Friday as an Israeli army patrol passed near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, an Israeli military spokesman said.
After the blast, Israeli soldiers and Palestinians exchanged fire in the area as Israeli combat helicopters circled above, the spokesman said.
Israeli security forces were on full alert for attacks by the Islamic militant Hamas group after the Palestinian Authority released dozens of its activists from jail.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat pledged a probe into Thursday's lynching of Israeli soldiers that triggered the wave of helicopter raids on key Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including his own offices.
"We are making a very serious investigation," Arafat told reporters, referring to the murder of at least two Israeli soldiers by an angry Palestinian mob in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
With the stand hardening on the Israeli political scene, Barak has announced plans to set up a "government of national emergency" with right-wing leader Ariel Sharon, a hate-figure for the Palestinians and in the Arab world.
An Israeli government that includes the hawkish right wing and Sharon -- whose visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound at a site holy to Jews and Muslims alike sparked the violence -- would only serve to strengthen Arab resolve, Syria said.
In other developments, more than 100 US lawmakers urged the condemnation of Arafat for failing to publicly oppose continuing violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
And US embassies in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia were closed Friday amid fears of anti-American violence after the suspected terrorist attack in Yemen and the continuing violence.
Thirty-seven missions in 22 countries throughout the Middle East and Africa as well as those in Pakistan were told to shut and remain closed to the public until Monday, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said – (AFP)
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