Israeli troops killed Monday two members of the Palestinian Fateh faction, suspected of planting a bomb in the Gaza Strip, said Reuters.
The Israeli army said the two men were seen planting a bomb on the edge of Bureij refugee camp, close to the Israeli border, when troops opened fire.
The bodies were found after dawn and a roadside bomb was detonated, said the agency.
Palestinians identified them as a 48-year-old civilian and a 29-year-old policeman.
A relative of one of the dead men told Reuters they may have been trying to place a roadside bomb.
In another development, Three Palestinian children were injured when the Israeli troops fired rubber coated metal bullets to disperse Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, Israel Radio reported, citing Palestinian sources.
The sources also reported that Israeli fire hit the Alia Hospital in the city, injuring one of the patients in her shoulder.
According to the radio, Palestinian gunmen reportedly fired on the Jewish enclave in Hebron from the Abu Sneina neighborhood that overlooks the enclave. There were no injuries.
Shots were fired at Israeli buses near the settlement of Otniel, south of Hebron, and near the settlement of Bet El, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, said Haaretz newspaper, reporting no injuries.
ISRAELI COMMANDER: ATTACK ON RJOUB WAS INTENTIONAL
A senior Israeli army commander said Monday that the attack on the house of Palestinian Preventive Security chief, Jibril Rjoub, was intentional.
Lieutenant Colonel Erez Wiener, commander of an Israeli elite unit, Dukefat, said that the army tank fire on Rjoub’s house was a response to gunmen who fired from the structure, and that “troops would again be ordered to hit the house if in the future gunmen used the structure for attacks on Israelis,” reported Haaretz newspaper.
He added that the house had been used a number of times in recent weeks as a firing position.
Rjoub was uninjured in the incident, but five of his officers were wounded.
"We are operating cautiously and selectively to prevent injury to innocent people, and in the future, as well, if there is firing from that house, fire will be returned at the sources of fire, according to IDF rules of engagement," Wiener said.
"The tank hit exactly where we intended. It was responsive fire, after firing had come from the house for some time, and after we tried to quiet it with small-arms fire.
Israeli tanks fired three shells at the house, and the Palestinian Authority immediately issued a statement accusing Israel of trying to "assassinate" Rjoub.
It has accused Israel of deliberately killing at least 30 activists to quash an eight-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
A Preventive Security official told Reuters that Rjoub was sleeping in his Ramallah house when the shells struck.
He and his family, who were also in the house, were unhurt, but five bodyguards were wounded, the official said.
Television footage showed Rjoub being whisked away by security guards from the house, which had at least one hole in brickwork at the front and another through a garden wall.
Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had said the “troops did not try to strike at Rjoub,” Haaretz said.
"He, of course, is not a target," Ben-Eliezer said. "I can't imagine that officers in the area would ever think of harming Rjoub."
An Israeli military spokesman said the tank commander did not know the house belonged to Rjoub, and the Israeli army denied that Rjoub - considered one of the most pragmatic of the Palestinian military leaders - was targeted by the tank.
Meretz party leader, Yossi Sarid, called Rjoub immediately after the shooting to condemn it and heard that the shooting has not changed his mind about both sides having to return to the negotiating table, claimed Haaretz.
The shooting broke out in the area on Sunday after an Israeli officer at Psagot was wounded by Palestinian fire.
SEVEN PALESTINIANS INJURED IN NEW ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA
At least seven Palestinians were injured in a new Israeli attack in the early hours of Monday when helicopter gunships raided the city of Gaza.
The Palestinian satellite channel showed footage of a mechanic's workshop, a marble factory and a bookshop damaged in the raid, in addition to five civilian houses in the Tuffah neighborhood on the north side of the city.
Rescue teams were removing debris under which more victims were buried, said the station's correspondent.
PA buildings were also shelled in the Israeli attack, said AL Jazeera satellite channel. The shelling targeted buildings of Force 17 and National Security.
The West Bank city of Hebron was also shelled by Apache helicopters, said the TV report, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
El Beireh city near Ramallah was also shelled, said the TV report.
Israeli military sources said the buildings housed a factory for producing mortar shells, but Palestinian officials said the structures were strictly civilian in nature, said Reuters.
Palestinian Public Security chief Abdel-Razek Al Majaydeh said the missiles seriously damaged a car mechanic's workshop on the outskirts of the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
He said a marble factory and library were damaged in the barrage, Reuters quoted him as saying.
The army said the helicopters hit a factory used to make mortar shells, 160 of which have been fired at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and Israeli farming communities nearby in the past few months.
"The factory is one of a few facilities which makes mortar bombs that are shot towards Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and towards Israel," the army said in a statement, cited by the agency.
A two-hour gun battle ensued between Israeli troops and Palestinian forces in the town below the Psagot peak overlooking El Bireh.
Israeli bullets struck the Friends School in the center of the town, said Palestinian sources, but because it was Sunday, the school was closed. Nobody was wounded.
US: ISRAEL SHOULD HALT F16 ATTACKS
Israel should halt the use of US-built F-16 warplanes for attacks as violence in the Middle East escalates, US Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday, cited by Reuters.
When asked if Israel should stop using F-16s, Cheney replied, "Yeah, I think they should stop, both sides should stop and think about where they are headed here."
But Cheney declined to discuss whether the United States would take steps to force Israel to keep the American-supplied F-16s grounded.
"It's a very delicate situation," he said on NBC's Meet the Press television program.
Israel last week deployed the F-16s for the first time since the 1967 Middle East war, in "retaliation" for a suicide bomber from the militant Hamas movement who killed six people, including himself, at a shopping mall in the seaside Israeli city of Netanya on Friday.
Hours later, Israeli F-16s struck Palestinian security compounds in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, killing at least 12 Palestinian policemen and raising Israeli attacks to a new level in the current uprising.
The F-16s were provided by the United States to Israel for "defense" purposes.
Cheney said it was unlikely the United States would be able to broker a face-to-face meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the near future, but said the administration was in touch with both sides.
"The circumstances, terms of the possibility of getting the parties together across the table are pretty remote," Cheney said.
Cheney said the administration had spoken to both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and said Secretary of State Colin Powell "may well meet with one or both of them on his trip to Europe."
Powell is scheduled to travel to Europe next week.
Meanwhile, the US-led Mitchell commission is due to issue its final report on eight months of Israeli-Palestinian violence on Monday.
Former US senator George Mitchell's committee was due to issue its report in New York. It was expected to demand both sides halt the violence and call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlements, a demand rejected by the Israeli government, said the agency.
SHARON THREATENS PALESTINIANS WITH ALL-OUT WAR
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned he would deploy as much military might as necessary against the Palestinians, amid scathing domestic criticism of his use of warplanes to retaliate for a suicide bombing.
"We will do everything necessary and use everything we have to protect Israeli citizens," Sharon was quoted by Reuters as saying in an interview with Israel's largest daily, Yedioth Ahronoth.
The right-wing leader convened his security cabinet to discuss the latest escalation in violence in an eight-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence.
Israeli Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Shlomo Benizri said that he wholeheartedly supported the military action, but that he regretted the fact that the decision was made without consulting with the entire defense cabinet, said Haaretz newspaper.
However, he harshly criticized Israel's policy of explanation, and said that in spite of the attack in which five Israelis were killed, the "Palestinians came out on top," said Haaretz newspaper.
Sharon, meanwhile, said that he would be ready to give in on political issues, but not security ones.
According to Sharon, the public opinion in the United States is influenced by the public opinion in Israel, thus the stance in Israel must be unified.
MUBARAK: WORLD SHOULD PRESS ISRAEL TO STOP VIOLENCE
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak called on the international community on Sunday to persuade Israel to halt mounting attacks against Palestinian targets, said Reuters.
"I sent a letter yesterday to the American President (George W. Bush)...and to many countries (to help end Israeli attacks)...These countries should warn Israel of the dangers of the path it is taking," Mubarak told reporters.
"If countries only make statements it will not bring results," he added - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
