Two Palestinians were shot dead Friday by Israeli troops as protesters clashed with soldiers, dimming hopes that proposed new peace talks could get off the ground.
In the evening, Israeli soldiers shot Arigh Saaber al-Djabali, 19, as she hung laundry on her house balcony. She died later at Ali hospital in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Her sister-in-law was also injured and remained at the hospital.
An Israeli spokesman said soldiers posted at the nearby Beit Hagai Jewish settlement opened machine-gun fire in response to an armed attack toward their position.
But Palestinian police and the victims' family said the soldiers shot in the air for a celebration and had not been attacked.
Just before dawn, soldiers shot and killed Mohammed Mahmud Abu Hasira, 37, near the Erez crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip after a night of sporadic gunfights.
Commenting on the death, the Israeli army said it had shot a "Palestinian terrorist" who was trying to enter an Israeli military post near the border with Gaza. A spokesman described the man as carrying a big bag and shouting "Allah u-Akhbar (God is Greater)."
The deaths bring to 369 the number of people killed in the troubled region since the beginning of the latest round of violence on September 28. The vast majority of deaths have been Palestinian.
Also in the Gaza Strip Friday, a Palestinian security official said that Israeli soldiers shot and critically injured a Palestinian policeman who was traveling near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, south of Gaza City.
At least 20 other Palestinians were injured Friday in the West Bank, when Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets at scores of Palestinian stone-throwers at the northern entrance of the Arab-run city of Ramallah, medical officials said.
The clashes broke out after some 3,000 Palestinians marched through Ramallah shouting slogans denouncing a US proposal for a compromise peace deal with Israel.
"The return to negotiations ignores the blood of the martyrs," demonstrators shouted before setting fire to an Israeli flag.
"The right of return is sacred. It cannot be compromised and is not for sale!" cheered others.
Israeli and Palestinians have said that the US plan would give the Palestinians control over nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Arab areas of east Jerusalem.
Some Jewish settlements, however, would be annexed to Israel and the Palestinians would have to accept the Jewish state's refusal to allow an estimated 3.7 million Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in what is now Israel.
Witnesses Friday said clashes with Israeli soldiers also broke out on the outskirts of the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem where some 2,000 Palestinians marched through the streets denouncing the US peace plan, including a group of gunmen who fired automatic weapons in the air.
There were no reports of injuries there.
South of Tulkarem in Nablus, some 1,000 Palestinians -- most hailing from factions opposed to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat -- called on Arafat not to resume negotiations based on the initiatives of US President Bill Clinton.
Demonstrators in Nablus set fire to photographs of Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Dozens of Palestinian youths also pelted soldiers with rocks in Hebron, witnesses said. The soldiers responded by firing rubber-coated steel bullets.
Friday's clashes followed a night of gunfights, at least one pitting Israeli soldiers against Palestinian police, but without reports of injuries.
The Israeli army said an Israeli bus came under fire north of Ramallah.
Some 200 Jewish settlers, angered by Barak's avowed willingness to dismantle some of their homes in order to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians, also protested in the West Bank.
Israel has said that Arafat's Palestinian Authority must do more to halt the violence before a US-proposed round of intensive peace talks can proceed in Washington.
Israeli and Palestinian security officials are due to meet with CIA chief George Tenet in Cairo on Sunday for yet another attempt to stop the bloodshed.
In a statement Friday, a coalition of 13 Palestinian factions called for mass protests to be held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Monday to support the right of Palestinian refugees to return -- HEBRON, West Bank (AFP)
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