MIDDLE -EAST: A three-day lull in violence in the Middle East was punctured yesterday by shootings that left two Palestinians and two Israelis dead, and more than ten people injured, including two pregnant women - one Israeli and one Palestinian.
Two Israelis were killed in a shooting ambush near the West Bank city of Bethlehem yesterday afternoon in an attack that appeared to be in line with a new strategy by Palestinian militants of focusing their attacks on military targets and on Jewish settlers inside the occupied territories, rather than in Israel.
One of the injured was an Israeli woman in her 36th week of pregnancy, who was admitted to a Jerusalem hospital but safely gave birth about an hour after being shot. One of the Israeli men killed in Bethlehem was the father of the child.
Several hours later, as darkness descended, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a group of people standing at a bus stop in the neighbourhood of Neveh Ya'akov, in a part of Jerusalem that was conquered by Israel in 1967. Eight Israelis were injured in the shooting, five seriously. One of the gunmen escaped, while the second was admitted to an Israeli hospital in serious condition after he was shot by security forces.
A Palestinian man who was driving his wife to a hospital in Nablus to give birth, was shot dead by soldiers at a checkpoint near the West Bank city in the early hours of yesterday morning.
The Israeli army said soldiers had ordered the car to stop but the driver had tried to get around the roadblock and the soldiers fired.
The mother, Ms Maysoun Hayek (22), who was injured, gave birth and named her new baby girl Fida, meaning sacrifice in Arabic. This marked the second day in a row that a pregnant Palestinian woman has been shot and injured at the same roadblock near Nablus.
At an army checkpoint near the West Bank city of Tulkarm, troops shot dead a young Palestinian woman, whom soldiers said had rushed at them with a knife and did not heed their warnings to stop.
Following a spate of Palestinian attacks on checkpoints in recent days - a week ago, six soldiers were gunned down at a checkpoint near Ramallah - soldiers at roadblocks have become increasingly jittery.
That tension was evident on Sunday night when Israeli troops fired at the car of Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, at a roadblock north of Jerusalem. Palestinians said noone was injured in the car which was fitted with special armour-plating.
Soldiers said they spotted the car rapidly approaching the checkpoint and feared it might be used in a terror attack. The Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, telephoned Abu Ala to apologise for the incident.
Israel yesterday eased its stranglehold on Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, moving its tanks back from his compound to the outskirts of the West Bank city where he has been confined since mid-December. The move was in line with a cabinet decision on Sunday that the Palestinian leader could move around Ramallah but could not leave.
European Union foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana, who met Mr Peres in Jerusalem yesterday, called on Israel to lift the travel ban. "The sooner he (Mr Arafat) gets freedom of movement the better," Mr Solana said at a news conference after the meeting.
Mr Solana said the Israeli decision on Sunday to pull back tanks from Arafat's headquarters but to keep him penned in the city created a "situation of half freedom".
"I don't think it is a wise decision to give him half movement," he said. "He has to have full freedom - it is important for him to do his job, from my point of view," Mr Solana told reporters.
Israel has said its decision to allow Mr Arafat to leave his compound but not the West Bank town of Ramallah was a goodwill gesture, although it angered the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli tanks pulled out of the area around Mr Arafat's compound in Ramallah early yesterday, but the Palestinians nonetheless suspended security talks with the Jewish state aimed at stemming violence.
Mr Solana arrived in Israel late on Sunday to start a five-day tour of the Middle East in a bid to ease the tension and violence in the region. His visit will take in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Jordan.
Mr Arafat has been kept pinned down in Ramallah until he arrests and brings to justice those responsible for October's assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Mr Rehavam Zeevi.
The European Union has been at the forefront of calls for Israel to lift the travel ban on the Palestinian leader in order to allow him to hunt down those responsible for the murder of Mr Zeevi.
On Thursday, Mr Solana heads to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak, then he travels to Jordan on Friday to meet King Abdullah II. - (Additional reporting AFP)