Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation, Nabil Shaath will meet with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres during his visit to Athens, where he will also meet with senior European Union (EU) officials. In the meanwhile, Israel was on Tuesday evening shelling Palestinian security posts in the Gaza strips with helicopter gunships, injuring at least 70.
In a related development, a bomb exploded north of Tel Aviv with no injuries reported.
According to Al Jazeera satellite channel, the meeting was arranged by an Israeli businessman who has met several times with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, as instructed by Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer.
Other reports said the meeting, the first at this level since the new Israeli government took office, was brokered by the EU amid US and UN pressures on both Israel and the PNA to find a way out of the escalating violence in the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Arafat met today with UN envoy Terry Larsen within the same context, Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) said.
Shaath was quoted by AFP as calling Tuesday for a reactivation of Europe's role in the Middle East peace process as he headed to Athens.
"Europe must mobilize to produce something in the future," Shaath told reporters before heading to Greece where he was due to meet the EU's Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos and foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Shaath described the United States' position on the Middle East peace process as "as negative as can be," saying it reminded him of the US position toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Meanwhile, during an official visit to Sweden which currently holds the EU presidency, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres politely deflated Tuesday the EU's expressed desire for an enhanced role mediating between Israel and the Palestinians, saying Washington remained Israel's peace broker of choice, according to the agency.
Israel Bombarding Gaza, West Bank Cities
Meanwhile, Israel continued with its offensives on the Palestinian territories on Tuesday evening, bombarding with rockets fired by helicopters four security posts in the Gaza strip, reported the MBC TV. The station correspondent said that one of these posts, which belong to the presidential guards unit Force 17, is adjacent to Arafat’s residence. The President was in Ramallah at the time, and reported heading for Gaza.
At least 45 people were injured in the attacks, hospital sources told AFP.
Thirty-five injured were reported in Rafah and 10 in Gaza City, the sources said.
Abu Dhabi TV channel reported late Tuesday that a Force 17 post in Ramallah was raided, it did not report injuries.
The station added that Tulkarem and Nablus in the West Bank were also under attack in the West Bank.
The raids came hours after three mortar bombs were fired on the Atsoma settlement in the southern Gaza Strip, seriously injuring a baby and another person.
The Israeli army on Tuesday condemned as "brutal and vicious" the Palestinian mortar bomb attack against a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip that critically injured a baby and lightly wounded a woman, and said it would punish those responsible, said AFP.
"It is a brutal and vicious premeditated attack, launched with the sole aim of killing women and children," the army said in a statement.
"The Israeli army will not ignore this barbaric attack. Those responsible will be punished. Israel cannot tolerate for much longer these types of attacks," it added.
Three mortars were fired on the Jewish settlement of Atzmona in the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the southern Gaza Strip.
A hospital official said the 10-month-old baby was critically wounded in the attack, which also left a settler woman lightly injured. It was the first attack of its kind since the Intifada erupted more than six months ago that has injured Israeli civilians.
In response to the Israel latest attacks on PNA-controlled areas, head of Gaza’s Preventive Security Mohammad Dahlan threatened that the Palestinians would “change their behavior,” towards the Israeli practices.
“We have innovative means to counteract these violations,” the colonel told reporters on Tuesday.
Also in Gaza, Palestinians fired four mortar shells late Tuesday at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip but no one was hurt, reported Haaretz.
The shells fell near houses in the Netzarim settlement, the source said.
Dahlan said that there will be no security coordination with the Israeli side unless under the supervision of UN observer force.
The US vetoed last week a Security Council resolution calling for sending unarmed UN troops to the Palestinian lands, a demand repeated by the Palestinians and the Arab leaders.
Dahlan’s statement echoed remarks by a top Fateh leader in the West Bank, Hussein Al-Sheikh, who earlier threatened that the Palestinians will begin employing the methods of assassination which Israel has been using against the Palestinians, Haaretz quoted him as saying.
Al-Sheikh, said Haaretz, was referring to the assassination of Mohammed Abdel-Al, member of the Islamic Jihad movement, on Monday by a helicopter fire in the Gaza Strip.
Bomb Explodes in Hod Hasharon, North of Tel Aviv
A bomb exploded late Tuesday in the Israeli town of Hod Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, said reports.
Eight people were slightly injured in the bomb attack described by Israeli police as a "terrot bombing," said Haaretz.
The police said the explosive device was similar to those recently used by Palestinians in bomb attacks and an investigation has been opened.
Israeli Army Orders Refugee Camp Residents to Evacuate
Earlier, the Israeli army made loudspeaker announcements telling Palestinian residents of Bethlehem's Aida camp and the area around Rachel's Tomb, a Jewish holy site, to evacuate their homes, residents told AFP.
Meanwhile, two Palestinian teenagers were lightly wounded by rubber bullets in a clash between Israeli troops and dozens of stone-throwers in a West Bank village near Bethlehem, medical sources and witnesses were quoted by the agency as saying.
The army's move came after a clash in the nearby al-Khader village a day after Israeli tanks pounded Bethlehem with shells and missiles in heavy fighting that left an Israeli soldier dead and around a dozen Palestinians wounded.
The army has previously given evacuation orders to Palestinian areas before launching attacks during the past six months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
In the Gaza Strip, a 31-year-old Palestinian man was injured by flying splinters and debris when Israeli tanks guarding the Kfar Darom settlement shelled a Palestinian residential area in Deir al-Balah, medical sources said.
Some shells fell near positions of the Palestinian national security forces and a number of homes were damaged, witnesses said.
Overnight, the Israeli army entered areas in the southern Gaza Strip under full Palestinian control and razed an outpost of the presidential guards unit, Force 17, said AFP.
Around 100 Israeli soldiers, four tanks and two army bulldozers entered the Khan Yunis region where the two sides exchanged fire for around an hour as the small outpost was bulldozed, a Palestinian source told the agency, adding that no one was hurt in the shooting.
The area is part of more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip which falls under full Palestinian security and administrative control.
The Islamic Jihad vowed to revenge for Abdel-Al's assassination and carry out more attacks against Israel.
Both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres defended the assassination, claiming that the Jewish state "has the right to defend itself from Palestinian terrorist."
"Because the PA isn't following the agreements with us to halt terror, Israel has to take the necessary steps," Sharon was quoted as saying by Haaretz newspaper on Monday.
Fierce clashes flared in the Palestinian territories on Monday with an Israeli soldier killed in an exchange of fire with armed Palestinians near Rachel's Tomb in the West Bank city of Bethlehem and several Palestinians injured in clashes with Israeli troops.
19-year-old Danny Darai was killed in the exchange of fire that also left seven Palestinians wounded.
Clouds of white smoke rose from the city, as Israeli tank shells slammed into the Paradise Hotel in the city, according to Haaretz.
It claimed that the hotel was turned into a sandbagged Palestinian fort from which snipers tried to pick off Israeli soldiers.
The gunfire was so intense that the thunderous booms of the tank shells could be heard in central Jerusalem, a few kilometers away.
In Hebron, Jewish settlers and the Israeli army were blaming "outside extremist Jews" for a bombing that destroyed a Palestinian grocery, slightly injuring six soldiers on patrol at the time of the bombing in the wholesale market, said The Jerusalem Post newspaper.
Settlers leaders said they want the perpetrators prosecuted because the bombing, which destroyed several shops as well as the grocery, had injured soldiers.
In other developments, a car bomb was discovered overnight near the Shavei Shomron junction near Nablus by a routine patrol of soldiers.
The car, parked at the side of the road, raised the soldiers' suspicions and they made note of its license number. As the soldiers drove off, the car exploded, said the Post, adding that nobody was hurt in the incident.
In the evening, a Jewish settler was wounded in the West Bank by bullet fragments that hit his car, added the paper.
Meanwhile, Israeli military sources said the Palestinians had improved the quality of their shooting in recent weeks, according to Haaretz. "Palestinian forces were getting training as snipers, and the PA's security forces were now involved in smuggling telescopic sights into the territories," the sources said - Albawaba.com
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