Israeli tanks and machine gunners traded heavy fire early Saturday with Palestinian resistance fighters in the area around the West Bank town of Beit Jala, despite a ceasefire between the two sides.
No injuries were immediately reported in the firefight, which comes as Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres edged closer to holding a meeting to consolidate the truce.
In Brussels, meanwhile, EU leaders decided late Friday to send a top-level delegation to the Middle East in a renewed bid to promote peace efforts seen as more urgent following last week's terror attacks in the United States.
An AFP reporter heard the echo of heavy tank and automatic rifle fire as Palestinians fired from Beit Jala and the neighboring refugee camp of Aida, and Israeli tanks opened up from nearby areas under Israeli control.
The clash was just the latest in a series of violent incidents, which have undermined the ceasefire declared by both sides on Tuesday.
On Friday, 24 Palestinians were injured, one seriously, in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Friday, hospital sources said.
The escalation flared on day three of a shaky ceasefire, jeopardizing prospects of high-level Palestinian-Israeli talks being pushed by the United States in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Seven people were wounded at a demonstration at Ramallah in the West Bank where several hundred Palestinians chanted slogans and some threw stones at soldiers following the weekly Muslim prayers, the hospital sources told AFP.
Hussein Arar, a 17-year-old, was shot in the head and seriously wounded.
An AFP photographer at the scene was struck on the leg by a tear-gas canister and required medical treatment.
In the north of the Gaza Strip eight young people were shot in a similar stone-throwing clash near the Karni border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
The Karni crossing is a regular flashpoint.
According to Haaretz newspaper, three mortar shells were fired Friday afternoon at the Gaza Strip settlement of Netzer Hazani.
Thirty grenades were earlier hurled at an Israeli army outpost adjacent to the Gaza town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, it said.
Israeli tanks returned fire at a nearby Palestinian border police building, but there were no reports of injury, AFP and Haaretz said.
At Rafah, near the Egyptian border, four teenagers were struck by bullets and five people in their 50s were wounded in missile fire, a hospital source said, after earlier reporting that tanks were used.
According to a Palestinian security source, the Israeli army also closed the main road linking the Deir el-Balah refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip with Khan Yunis in the south.
The Israeli army, under orders not to initiate any offensive action, denied involvement in the Karni and Ramallah shootings.
An army spokeswoman said the route to Khan Yunis was briefly closed during a search of the area after a Jewish settlement came under fire.
On the diplomatic front, Peres said Friday that a meeting between him and Arafat would definitely take place, if the current level of quiet in the Gaza Strip and West Bank lasted for more than two days.
Responding to a question from reporters at a press conference in Tel Aviv on whether he knew if Arafat had carried out any arrests of Palestinians responsible for alleged terror attacks, Peres said, "I have no updated information on arrests, but I have information that until now there has been quiet which I very much appreciate. If this quiet lasts two more days, we can meet," Haaretz said.
Palestinian sources said that the foreign minister had asked the Palestinian leader to agree to postpone the meeting until Sunday, but no final date or location has been set.
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem said Thursday that they believed that the meeting would take place Saturday night.
However, Arafat said Friday that he believed the meeting would take place Sunday night.
Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah, Arafat said that he had received a message from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, through the Turkish Foreign Mininster Ismail Cem.
According to the message, Sharon said that should the cease-fire be maintained, he would be very serious about holding diplomatic negotiations, the paper said.
Arafat added that he was not sure if the meeting would take place Sunday, in light of the fact that one such meeting, scheduled to take place Saturday night, had already been cancelled.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Friday branded Arafat a "terrorist," but said he hoped the two sides would start talks next week on turning a shaky cease-fire into a lasting truce, according to the paper -- Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
