Israel on Sunday 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. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said channels had been opened for ceasefire talks with the PA, according to reports.
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.
On Saturday night, the Israeli army carried out an incursion into autonomous Palestinian territory in Khan Yunis aimed at a "terrorist group" it said was preparing anti-Israeli attacks.
A 29-year-old member of Fateh faction was killed in the incursion and 10 others injured, three of them seriously.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior diplomatic adviser, Avi Pazner, Saturday warned Israeli troops would continue to pursue and kill "terrorists" as he defended the raid at Khan Yunis.
He described the operation as part of a "legitimate policy of self-defense which consists of intercepting terrorists wherever they can be found.
"This policy will continue," he vowed.
On Saturday, Israel was braced for more suicide bombings following the arrest of two alleged Islamic Jihad members, Israeli authorities said intended to set off a bomb in the crowded port city of Haifa.
Following the arrest, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon congratulated his security forces for stopping Palestinian bomb attacks and saving the lives of many Israelis, his office said in a statement Saturday.
Palestinian officials say that over 40 political leaders and resistance fighters have been killed under Israel's assassination policy, variously called by the euphemisms "targeted killings," "liquidations," "surgical strikes," and "interception operations."
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 547 Palestinians, and 146 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss.
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.
The latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation began last September.
PERES: THERE ARE CONTACTS WITH PALESTINIANS
Peres 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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