AN ISRAELI settler shot dead a Palestinian in Hebron yesterday, triggering riots in which two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops and over 100 injured.
The clashes in Hebron, which lasted for more than five hours, were the worst since Israel pulled its forces out of 80 per cent of the city more than two months ago. The crowd, mainly young men, threw stones and at least one petrol bomb at Israeli border police.
The death toll was also the highest since daily clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops erupted throughout the West Bank almost three weeks ago, after the Israeli government approved the start of construction at the Jewish neighbourhood of Har Homa, on the south-east outskirts of Jerusalem.
In the ensuing unrest, a Palestinian reporter for the Associated Press news agency was hurt when settlers beat him with an iron bar witnesses said.
The fighting flared as the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, was flying home from Washington, where he had held talks on Monday with President Clinton aimed at saving the 3 1/2-year-old Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Mr Clinton was apparently unimpressed by Mr Netanyahu's suggestion that the US host intensive Israeli-Palestinian talks designed to supersede the phased Oslo process and achieve a full peace deal within a few months.
While not rejecting the notion outright, the president is reported to have urged Mr Netanyahu to first commit himself to a "more generous" approach to peacemaking, including a freeze on further settlement building.
President Clinton yesterday appeared to rule out US arm-twisting to revive the Middle East peace process, saying it was up to Israel and the Palestinians to get stalled negotiations started again.
"I want these parties to do what they have to do to get this process up and going again. We've got to have an atmosphere of zero tolerance for terror but we've also got to have the kind of confidence-building necessary to make peace," Mr Clinton said after a meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien.
American officials are to hold talks with a Palestinian delegation before Mr Clinton takes a decision as to whether and when to despatch envoys such as peace talks mediator, Mr Dennis Ross, or Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, to the region.
Yesterday's violence underlined the need for urgent intervention.
On Monday, a settler had shot and wounded two Palestinians near Ramallah after his car was stoned.
Yesterday, a Jewish student at the Sharei Hebron college shot dead Assam Rashid Arafeh, a 23-year-old Hebron man. Palestinian policemen carried him to his grave, surrounded by hundreds of furious townspeople vowing revenge.
College teachers and Israeli police officials said the shooting occurred after the student and a colleague had tear gas or other chemicals thrown in their faces.
Mr Moshe Bleicher, the head of the college, said his student "deserves a medal" for defending himself against "the terrorists and murderers who were trying to kill him."
Palestinian officials claimed that the settler violence was being orchestrated by Mr Netanyahu's government.
Echoing the Israeli accusation that Mr Arafat gave "a green light" for recent Hamas and Islamic Jihad suicide bombings, Palestinian official, Mr Faisal Husseini, claimed that Mr Netanyahu had given a green light for "deliberate and planned" settler violence.
Mr Netanyahu remains adamant that he will not halt the Har Homa project, nor make any other moves that might be interpreted as rewarding what he perceives as a resort to terrorism and street violence by the Palestinians.
In a similar vein, Mr Arafat said yesterday that Mr Netanyahu "does not want peace," and has ordered a halt to security co-operation with the Israelis. There now seems every likelihood of more violence in the days ahead.
. The EU has agreed to propose to the US a joint initiative to revive troubled Middle East peace negotiations, France said yesterday.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Yves Doutriaux, was reporting on a meeting of Middle East department heads of the 15 EU member-states with the bloc's special envoy to the region, Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos, in Brussels on Monday.