Eight Palestinians, including a three-year-old, were injured in an explosion overnight in Nablus, reported The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Local Palestinians were quoted by the paper as saying the explosion took place in a Hamas-controlled bomb factory.
PNA sources first claimed propane gas tanks were the source of the blast, but later unofficially admitted the explosion was set off by explosive devices, according to a report on the Yediot Ahronot Hebrew daily website.
The Palestinian Authority has not released the names of those injured in the blast, said the Post.
Incidents continued in the occupied territories Tuesday ahead of the meeting in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush.
On Tuesday, three Palestinian youths were injured when Israeli troops fired on demonstrators in an Arab village near Bethlehem who were protesting because the army closed the area following the killing of a settler the day before.
Against that backdrop of growing tension, the city authorities of Jerusalem gave the initial go-ahead for the building of more houses in the Har Homa settlement in occupied east Jerusalem, where building work in March 1997 dealt a hefty blow to the peace process.
The project is to build a second group of 2,832 homes, but it has to get the necessary authorisation from the interior ministry and final approval from the city authorities.
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told AFP that the decision "shows that Israel is responsible for the violence."
"Confrontation in all its forms will continue between the Palestinians and Israel so long as the settlements continue, particularly in Jerusalem," he continued.
For his part, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called on foreign leaders "to intervene to convince (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat to reduce the violence and halt the direct involvement of the Palestinian Authority in terrorist activities," a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP.
Israel's army chief of staff General Shaul Mofaz Tuesday accused the Palestinian Authority's security forces of being behind the deaths of more than 40 percent of Israelis killed during the past six months of violence.
Peres also laid out four principles for changing the situation with the Palestinians
He said they would include "ending the violence, switching to a language of peace, returning to the negotiating table and easing the sanctions in the territories."
These four points need to be achieved "simultaneously, and without any pre-conditions", a foreign ministry statement added.
Peres also called on the Palestinian Authority to "publically express its commitment to the Olso accords which stipulate differences should be settled through dialogue and not through violence."
He said everyone would come with their own ideas and that Israel could not ban the Palestinians from saying they want an agreement on a final status.
He was referring to Sharon's statements that he does not want to negotiate a final agreement for now, unlike his Labour predecessor Ehud Barak, favouring instead long-term interim accords.
Later on Israeli television, Peres ruled out the possibility of a meeting with Arafat ahead of the forthcoming Arab summit in Amman, planned for March 27 and 28.
"I am still weighing up the possibilities of such a meeting, but I think that we have to wait for the summit to see what happens, what are the results and what is the kind of language used," he said.
Meanwhile, an Israeli resident of the Jewish settlement of Bruchin near the Palestinian city of Nablus suffered moderate wounds Tuesday afternoon when he was shot by Palestinians lying in ambush at the side of the road near the village of A-Dik.
The Israeli was traveling between Bruchin and Elei Zahav when the ambush took place, said the Israeli paper.
Meanwhile, a recent statement by Palestinian Telecommunications Minister Imad al-Falouji, that the Al Aqsa Intifada was planned, rather than being a spontaneous response to then opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, Tuesday became a central component of Israel's public relations war against the Palestinian Authority, said Haaretz.
Falouji's statement starred in the 50-page report Israel submitted yesterday to the Mitchell Committee, the international fact-finding commission investigating events in the territories, whose members arrived in the region this week for a series of meetings.
Among others, the committee will hold its first meeting with Prime Minister Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
In a related development, seven member countries presented a resolution Tuesday to the UN Security Council demanding that UN observers be sent to the Palestinian territories, said AFP.
The resolution -- presented on behalf of the Palestinian Authority a day ahead of a visit to the United Nations by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- calls for the establishment of a UN force of military and police observers "to be dispatched throughout the territories occupied by Israel since 1967."
The goal would be to bring an end to six months of violence between Israelis and Palestinians that has left 440 people dead, most of them Palestinians.
Diplomats said that the measure, proposed by Bangladesh, Colombia, Jamaica, Mali, Mauritius, Singapore and Tunisia, has virtually no chance of approval.
Israel opposes the presence of an international force in the territories and Sharon is expected to reiterate that refusal when he meets with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Wednesday.
The United States has thrown its weight behind the Israeli position and in December threatened to use its Security Council veto to block a similar resolution – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
