Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian workers early Sunday in the northern city of Nablus in the West Bank, as they reportedly tried to sneak into Israel.
Husni Abu Leil, 19, from the Balata Palestinian refugee camp and Khalil Sarafandi, 50, from the nearby Askar camp died when the soldiers opened fire on two cars carrying Palestinian workers, a Palestinian hospital source told AFP. Three others were slightly wounded, the source said.
They were taken to the hospital at Tulkarem after being shot near the neighboring village of Attara.
The incident came after a fragile ceasefire had been announced Wednesday by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
But the ceasefire was badly shaken Saturday, as three Palestinians were shot dead and more than 140 wounded after thousands of angry protestors and stone-throwers continued to mark their year-long uprising against Israel.
The deaths on Sunday raise the toll for the Palestinian uprising, which erupted last September 28, to 840, including 648 Palestinians and 169 Israelis.
In another development, Israel Radio reported Sunday that the Israeli security cabinet had decided to ease its seige of the Palestinian territories, starting Sunday with the autonomous Palestinian town of Jericho in the West Bank.
The move is in line with decisions taken at a meeting Wednesday between Peres and Arafat, the radio said, cited by the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz newspaper.
Peres and Arafat agreed on a ceasefire which has since been repeatedly broken, and the security cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met late Saturday to decide what to do about the breaches, Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP before the four-hour meeting.
Sharon's government has repeatedly blocked Palestinian pleas for teams of international observers to monitor and identify those responsible for ceasefire violations. The US has on two occasions scuppered such requests at the level of the UN.
The cabinet decided to continue to apply the ceasefire for at least 48 hours, the radio said, adding that if breaches continued after that period, the army would be given free rein to reply.
The weekly full cabinet meeting, normally held on Sunday mornings, was put off until the afternoon as the members of the security cabinet had been up all night, the radio said – Albawaba.com
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