Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops early Sunday in the West Bank, while an Israeli hit by Palestinian gunfire on Saturday night in east Jerusalem has died of his injuries.
Haaretz newspaper reported that Meir Weishof, 23, sustained critical head injuries while he was in a car driving between the Jewish settlements of Ramot and French Hill. Another passenger in the vehicle was less seriously hurt.
Earlier, Palestinian hospital officials said a Palestinian man was shot dead early Sunday during an incursion by the occupation troops into the Palestinian-controlled town of Ramallah on the West Bank.
Ali Khader Jaber, 26, was shot in the stomach when he went out on to the roof of his house after hearing shooting as Israeli tanks, with helicopter support, moved into the town, the officials told the official Palestinian news agency.
It added that ten others were injured, some seriously, adding that the occupation troops shelled a building of the Palestinian intelligence department in the area.
Another Palestinian man was killed earlier in the night in fighting in Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, while six others were wounded, WAFA said.
The Israeli army claimed its tanks opened fire after its troops came under attack near the town of Beit Sahur.
The dead man was an ambulance driver killed by shrapnel as he tried to evacuate the wounded from the combat zone, medical sources told WAFA.
Israel has launched a string of such incursions into Palestinian zones following attacks on its citizens in recent weeks.
The unrest came as Arab and Muslim nations accused Israel of using the deadly suicide strikes on New York and Washington as an excuse to step up its repression of the Palestinian people.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Saturday's raids were a bid to undermine the long-awaited face-to-face negotiations with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
"This is intended to sabotage the meeting," Arafat said after talks in Gaza City with the Russian Middle East envoy Andrei Vdovin.
"It is an escalation to continue to implement their plan for 'oranim'" he said, using the Hebrew word for hell.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said: "Arafat has done nothing for this meeting to happen."
Israeli television said that Peres and Sharon, who met late Saturday evening, did not rule out the possibility of holding the talks after the Jewish New Year on Tuesday and Wednesday, AFP said.
The hardline Sharon, who had given his dovish foreign minister a limited mandate to stage the delicate negotiations with Arafat, said Friday the talks were "inappropriate" at the moment, a senior official told AFP – Albawaba.com
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