The two-day-old Middle East truce was in danger of falling apart Thursday with one Palestinian and an Israeli killed and at least eight people wounded in a day of clashes and retaliatory shootings, reported AFP.
The Palestinian leadership late Thursday accused Israel of "sabotaging" the fragile ceasefire and returning to its military escalation, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency said, quoted by the agency.
"The international community must push Israel to react positively and quickly to the Palestinian initiative, by lifting the blockade of the (Palestinian territories), withdrawing its tanks, respecting the ceasefire and ending its military escalation," it said in a statement after a meeting chaired by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
"Israel wants to sabotage international efforts and the Palestinian initiative announced by President Arafat for the ceasefire and peace in the region," said the leadership, which includes Palestinian lawmakers and the executive of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
It accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hardline government of "wanting to profit from the terrorist attacks in the United States to continue its aggressions against the Palestinian people and reinforce its policy of blockading Palestinian cities."
The two-day-old ceasefire started to crumble Thursday after a Palestinian man died after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza Strip, and a drive-by grenade and shooting attack on a nearby Jewish settlement left five Israeli soldiers injured.
Early Thursday a Jewish settler was shot dead and her husband seriously injured as they drove with their three children near the Tekoa settlement, close to Bethlehem in the West Bank.
Later in the day, Fateh movement’s military wing, Al Aqsa Brigades said staged an attack against an Israeli tank in the Nablus area in the West Bank, reported Al Jazeera satellite channel. But Israeli media reported that there were no injuries or damage in the operation.
The same group claimed responsibility for the killing of the settler.
It said the attack was in "direct and immediate response to Israeli bombardments yesterday (Wednesday) in Hebron, Nablus and Gaza."
They, in turn, were Israeli responses to attacks by another group close to Fatah, the Popular Army Front-Return Battalions, in which two settlers were wounded, the army said.
Hospital sources said four Palestinians were wounded in retaliatory shelling.
"These attacks confirm the continuation of the intifada and of resistance until the liberation of Palestine," the Popular Army Front said.
Al-Aqsa Brigades, in a statement issued from Beirut, said it would "continue the armed resistance" against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian and wounded another at a Gaza Strip checkpoint, after five Israeli soldiers were wounded in a drive-by shooting.
Muneer Mustapha Abu Moussa, 33, was shot dead while driving in a taxi near a checkpoint between the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom and the Gush Katif settlement bloc, Palestinian security officials said.
The army said the shooting was in response to the drive-by shooting and grenade attack on five soldiers who were slightly wounded outside a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
The ceasefire was called Tuesday after intense pressure from the United States in the wake of the terror attacks on New York and Washington, although hardline Palestinian militants vowed to continue their armed resistance.
An Israeli security guard was later shot and slightly injured at Karni, the northeastern crossing point between Gaza and Israel, the army said, quoted by AFP.
"We see that the ceasefire is very tenuous, it's not holding," said Ranaan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Sharon has said a truce meeting between his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and Arafat can only go ahead if there are 48 hours of absolute calm.
In a separates incident in the West Bank, the army tore down tents where more than 100 Palestinians lived in hills south of Hebron, Israeli public radio reported.
And late Thursday, an Israeli tank fired three shells at armed Palestinians who were trying to enter Israel through the Qalqilya area, public radio reported, quoting military sources.
It did not say if any of the Palestinians were wounded in the incident in the north of the West Bank, which is being combed by Israeli troops.
Meanwhile, Palestinians launched grenades at an Israeli position in the Rafah sector of the southern Gaza Strip, close to the border with Egypt, the spokesman added, again without report of any casualties.
Inside the Green Line, which separates Israel from the Palestinian lands, a huge bomb was dismantled by the Israeli police.
This took place near the western entrance of the Arab village of Shafa Amr in the Galilee.
The police suspect it was designed to be detonated in a Jewish crowd. One person was arrested – Albawaba.com
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