As more violence rocked Israel, the West Bank and Gaza yesterday, with a Palestinian teenager shot dead, a hand-grenade attack at a settlement, one bomb in East Jerusalem and another on the Haifa-Tel Aviv railway line, Israel publicly acknowledged it had shot dead five Palestinian policemen without provocation earlier in the week.
Initially, an aide to the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, had said the five policemen were killed by Israeli troops outside Ramallah on Monday in an exchange of fire. On Tuesday, the army's chief-of-staff, Gen Shaul Mofaz, indicated, without elaboration, that the deaths had been unintentional and regrettable. But yesterday, a fuller account of the events emerged:
An Israeli army unit, it transpires, had been dispatched to track down members of Force 17, the presidential bodyguard of Palestinian Authority head
Mr Yasser Arafat, a unit Israel has consistently charged with involvement in orchestrating Intifada violence. Apparently acting on erroneous information, the troops believed Force 17 members were deployed at the police position where the late-night shootings took place. Furthermore, the Israeli military reporter Zeev Schiff wrote yesterday, the position had been used, according to Israeli intelligence, as a base from which Palestinian gunmen set out to fire on Israeli cars and military positions.
The late-night operation was apparently sanctioned by senior officials, overruling objections from some officers to the targeting of potentially innocent men.
Mr Ahmed Annajar, a policeman who survived the attack by crawling into a dip in the ground, said he was asleep when the shooting started and that several of his colleagues were killed when they ran outside. They were shot by Israeli soldiers who had taken up positions surrounding the building. "This was an assassination," he said.
The army is still investigating the incident. Israel's Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, said he greatly regretted the killings.
In fighting yesterday, Israel again entered Palestinian-held territory in Gaza, taking control of a building from which Palestinian gunmen had fired a mortar shell into a family home in an adjacent settlement. Troops in Gaza also killed a 14-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Saleem, one of a group of youths who advanced on an Israeli position throwing rocks. At Mishor Adumin, a West Bank settlement east of Jerusalem, locals overpowered three Palestinians who threw a hand-grenade into a shop and tried to set off several other grenades they were carrying. Also in the West Bank, Israel blockaded the village of Dir Bidwan, from where it believes gunmen emerged on Tuesday night to kill Israeli 22-year-old Ms Idit Mizrahi.
As the violence continues, both sides appear to be waiting for the Bush administration to intervene, probably on the basis of a report recently issued by the Mitchell Commission, which recommended a ceasefire package including a freeze on settlement activity. Several Palestinian officials have had talks in the US in recent days, and Mr Arafat may be invited to meet US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell in Paris next week. Asked yesterday when he might be traveling to Washington - President Bush has been markedly reticent in inviting him to the White House thus far - Mr Arafat waved away the question, saying he had "no answer".
Israeli helicopter gunships pounded a Palestinian security post in the Gaza Strip with missiles last night wounding at least seven people. There was another such attack in the Palestinian self-rule town of Jenin in the West Bank.