A 38-year-old woman was killed as Israeli forces in the center of the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian sources reported. Emtiaz Abu Ras, 38, was shot as she peered from a window of her house at troops who pursued and opened fire at a Palestinian in an alley in Nablus, witnesses said.
Later in the day, a Palestinian civilian was shot dead by the Israeli army in the Tulkarem area of the northern West Bank, according to Palestinian medical sources. Fayez Ahmed Salameh, 45, was fatally wounded in the area around the Jewish quarter of Enav, to the east of Tulkarem, the sources added.
Also in the West Bank, Palestinian security forces arrested two people in Bethlehem who were planning to carry out an attack in Jerusalem. The Palestinians said they arrested a female Fatah activist and male Islamic Jihad activist.
On Wednesday, Palestinian leaders had another fruitless meeting over forming a new government. The central committee of Fatah movement met twice on Wednesday to end the impasse over the choice of a new interior minister, but both meetings, the second of which ended in the late evening, failed to find a solution, party sources said.
Another meeting, the third within 24 hours, would be held on Thursday morning, the source said. According to Palestinian sources, Yasser Arafat is apparently blocking Ahmed Qurei's choice for Interior Minister, Brigadier General Nasser Yousef.
Meanwhile, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Israel Army had approved the seizure of Palestinian farmland in the Jordan Valley, not far from the Israel-West Bank border. The army, he said, planned to use the land for the separation fence that Israel is building in an effort to prevent suicide bombers from entering Israel.
Erekat said he complained to the United States, Russia and the European Union - brokers of the road map peace plan - to intervene. "The Israeli government is determined to bury the road map and the vision of a two-state solution underneath this wall," Erekat said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
