Israeli police said today they had found the body of a Jewish settler shot and killed the previous evening by Palestinian assailants near his home in the south Hebron hills of the West Bank.
A police spokesman said Palestinian gunmen attacked Mr Yair Harsinai (51) several hundred metres from his house in the settlement of Sussiya as he guided his herd of sheep out to pasture in the early evening yesterday.
At least two Palestinians ambushed him and shot him from short range - once in the head and once in the body, the spokesman said. Then they escaped to the (Palestinian-ruled) village of Yata.
The 15-day-old ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians seemed close to collapse yesterday after another Israeli and a Palestinian were killed in separate incidents, two car bombs exploded near Tel Aviv and Israel killed three Islamic militants.
In all, 15 Palestinians and nine Israelis have been killed since the warring parties adopted the now-battered truce brokered by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet on June 13.