Settlers were clashing Thursday with Israeli soldiers, evacuating an outpost, adjacent to the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, south of Nablus.
Hundreds of Israeli troops and police officers were involved in the evacuation operation, which got underway Thursday morning.
Settlers placed boulders, vehicles and their own bodies in the road in a bid to disrupt efforts to dismantle the outpost. Settlers said that some of them had been arrested.
The settlers also ignited Palestinian-owned wheat fields and olive groves in the area in an attempt to disrupt the operation.
Earlier, a suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday morning in a grocery store at the Israeli village of Sdeh Trumot, near Beit Shean in the north of the country, killing the owner of the store. A fire broke out at the scene as the result of the explosion, and firefighters were putting it out, Israel Radio said.
The Israeli, who was critically injured in the attack, died later of his wounds. The suicide bomber was killed in the blast. The nearest major Palestinian town to Sdeh Trumot is Jenin, about 20 kilometers to the west.
Police said the bomber blew himself up prematurely as a result of a technical malfunction, media reports said. Northern police chief Ya'akov Borovsky told Israel Radio that two eyewitnesses had spotted the bomber as he entered the grocery. The Islamic Jihad claimed this attack.
The attack came after a day of meetings in which Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas - trying to convince armed groups to stop such bombings - proposed a joint political leadership including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said Hamas official Ismaeel Abu Shanab.
In the talks, Hamas insisted on its right to target Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, said Shanab, according to AP. But he also said the group's leaders did not rule out the possibility of stopping the attacks. "We are examining the idea," said Abu Shanab.
Islamic Jihad leaders, however, rejected Abbas' call for a halt to attacks against all Israelis, said Islamic Jihad leader Abdulla Shami. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
