MIDEAST: Nine Palestinians were killed yesterday in heavy fighting with Israeli troops south of Gaza City near the adjacent Jewish settlement of Netzarim, on the day that US mediators held talks with Palestinian leaders and urged a return to peace negotiations.
Five of those killed were gunmen from Islamic Jihad and Hamas. According to the Israeli army, the other four were also armed or were fired on when planting explosive devices.
According to Palestinian and some Israeli reports, they were civilian bystanders caught in the crossfire. Some reports indicated that an 11-year-old was among the dead; other sources said the youngest fatality was 17.
The violence flared a day after Jewish settler leaders claimed they had been offered a "deal" by Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's top aide, under which Netzarim, home to just a few dozen families, and six other relatively small and isolated settlements would be voluntarily evacuated, and the Israeli government would pledge to dismantle no other long-standing settlements until a permanent peace accord was reached with the Palestinians.
Mr Sharon later insisted no such proposal had been presented. The settler leaders said they had rejected it, and opposed the evacuation of any settlements. Fifteen of the 40 Knesset members of Mr Sharon's own Likud party declared yesterday that they would do their utmost to prevent the dismantling of settlements and all other aspects of Mr Sharon's much-discussed unilateral "Disengagement Plan" from parts of the West Bank.
Meanwhile, German intermediaries were overseeing final arrangements for today's scheduled Israel-Hizbullah prisoner exchange, under which Israel is to free more than 400 Palestinian security prisoners, and some 30 from Lebanon and other Arab countries, in return for the bodies of three soldiers kidnapped on the Israel-Lebanon border more than three years ago and an Israeli businessman held captive by Hizbullah. Parents of the three soldiers say they still hold out hopes that their sons may still alive, although Chaim Avraham, whose son Benny is one of the three, said the chances were "one in a million.".
Among the 30 non-Palestinian prisoners, who were being flown overnight to Germany for the hand-over, are Mustafa Dirani and Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid, kidnapped by Israel from south Lebanon as potential bargaining chips for the release of Israel's best-known MiA, air force navigator Ron Arad, shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Dirani, who left jail along with Obeid last night, is alleged by Israel to have been one of Mr Arad's initial captors. A second phase of the deal, tentatively scheduled for spring, depends on Israel receiving information on Mr Arad's fate. Israel alleges that Mr Arad has been held in Iran, and two senior Iranian officials flew to Beirut yesterday, apparently as a first step to providing such details.
According to one of several accounts of yesterday's Gaza fighting, the clashes began when Israeli tanks escorted army bulldozers to remove olive trees in the Zeitun neighbourhood from where Palestinian gunmen had been firing at Israeli positions. The troops then moved into Zeitun in a hunt for gunmen. The subsequent gun-battles lasted on and off for several hours.
The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mr Ahmed Korei urged a halt to what he called "This continuous aggression against our people." Islamic Jihad officials threatened revenge.
Israel's army spokesman's office said the troops first opened fire when two anti-tank missiles were fired at them. A senior officer in the field, Udi Ben-Muha, said his soldiers were trying to "limit the freedom of action" used by Palestinian gunmen to escalate gunfire on Israeli positions recently.