An Israeli army operation on Saturday to demolish a Palestinian security position and shops in the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border escalated into a fierce firefight leaving at least 14 Palestinians injured.
Israeli tanks shelled Palestinian shops in Rafah after the army bulldozed a Palestinian security position in the area, prompting a heavy exchange of fire between the army and Palestinians, said AFP.
Medical sources told AFP that at least 14 people were injured by bullets and shrapnel during the incident, two of them seriously.
"The military presence in the area provokes people and escalates the confrontation," a Palestinian security source told AFP.
An army spokeswoman said Palestinians had opened fire on an army force in the region and said the army was checking whether soldiers on the scene returned fire.
Two explosive devices were thrown at the tanks as they approached the two-room intelligence building in Rafah, but there were no injuries, witnesses said.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli army said it had opened fire overnight on an armed Palestinian who was about to strike one of its positions in the Gaza Strip, reported AFP.
Soldiers guarding the Gush Katif settlement bloc "spotted an armed terrorist and opened fire, foiling the attack," a spokesman said, not specifying whether the man was injured or killed.
But the Palestinians denied any incident took place at Gush Katif, said the agency.
Palestinian colonel Khaled Abu al-Ula, head of the Israeli-Palestinian cooperation committee in the southern Gaza Strip, also denied an army report that Palestinians had fired two mortar shells at soldiers guarding the settlement.
However, the Islamic Hamas movement said in its Website that "Israeli troops killed one its members, Hafez Subukh, when he fired mortars at the settlement."
No more details were given by the movement.
Meanwhile, Haaretz newspaper reported that Palestinians threw four grenades at an Israeli army outpost in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday,
No injuries or damage were reported, said the paper.
It added that a bomb exploded Saturday morning next to a group of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank on the road leading to the Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh near Nablus. No injuries were also reported.
On Friday, clashes flared in the occupied Palestinian territories as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned the Palestinians can expect no more than they already have as the territory of a future state.
In an interview with the daily Maariv, Sharon said he would only be prepared to grant the Palestinians an independent state covering less than half the West Bank, defenseless and with its borders controlled by the Israelis for years to come, AFP cited him as saying.
Violence broke out throughout the Palestinian territories at the end of weekly Muslim prayers, leaving 29 Palestinians and five Israelis injured, most of them lightly.
Fifteen of the Palestinians, three of them children, were injured in a clash with Israeli troops at al-Muntar, near the Karni crossing point between the Gaza Strip with Israel.
Hundreds of supporters of the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad had turned out for a Gaza City rally, termed a "celebration of allegiance with the martyrs" of the Intifada.
Abdullah Shami, a Jihad leader, warned that the group's armed wing, Saraya al-Qods (Jerusalem Brigades), had "a vast number of people ready to carry out explosions and spread terror in Israel."
Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP that "so far we have not noted a significant reduction in the violence."
The daily Haaretz, quoting "reports reaching the army," said Friday Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had ordered his security services to crack down on the firing of mortars by Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.
Sharon, who has vowed not to resume peace negotiations until the Palestinians stop hitting the Israelis, said in an interview published Thursday that Arafat "is beginning to soften" under Israeli pressure.
An authoritative Israeli source confirmed Friday a report in Maariv that Avi Dichter, head of Israel's internal security service Shin Beth, had issued a warning to Arafat in a personal meeting this week.
He had transmitted a message from Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer that Israel "would strike directly at institutions of the Palestinian Authority if Palestinian mortar fire does not end."
There was no official Palestinian confirmation of the meeting.
Under Sharon the Israelis have mounted heavy strikes on bases of the Palestinian security forces in response to mortar fire and other attacks, while on Tuesday night they sent tanks into a Gaza Strip refugee camp to destroy buildings they claimed were being used by mortar teams.
On the regional front, Jordan's Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah al-Khatib said that he will become the highest-ranking Arab official to visit Sharon since he took office.
There was no immediate confirmation by Israeli officials of the meeting, expected to take place on Monday, according to AFP.
Jordan and Egypt presented this month a joint plan aimed at bringing an end to the deadly conflict which has killed more than 470 people, most of them Palestinian, but the Israelis have already rejected it.
EGYPT TO RETURN AMBASSADOR IF ISRAEL ACCEPTS PROPOSAL
Egyptian officials said Friday that Egypt would return its ambassador to Tel Aviv on condition that Israel accepts its plan to resume peace talks put forward by Egypt and Jordan, reported Haaretz newspaper.
In remarks made to the Arab daily A-Sharaq al Awsat, Egyptian officials told the United States they would only return their ambassador to Israel if Israel acted in accordance with the Sharm al-Sheikh accords, which are included in the Egyptian-Jordanian proposal.
In addition, the proposal calls for an end to the closures on Palestinian cities and a withdrawal of Israeli troops to positions they held prior to the October uprising.
ANNAN PROPOSES OWN PEACE PLAN
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has released his own plan for reducing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling for a renewal of the political negotiations, according to Haaretz.
In a statement issued Wednesday in New York, Annan warns the violence could get out of control, and says "taking security steps is not enough to end the violence."
He thus rejects Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's argument that there should be no negotiations under fire, said the paper.
Annan also calls on the sides to take confidence-building measures - and thus again rejects Israel's overall claim that, first, the Palestinians have to restrain the violence.
The UN chief urges both sides to cease all violence and to fully implement the Sharm el Sheikh understandings, the appointment of the Mitchell Commission to investigate the violence, and renewal of the negotiations for a permanent settlement.
He says Israel should "lift the siege" on Palestinian territories and transfer to the Palestinians (the) taxes Israel collected on the Palestinian Authority's (PA) behalf.
"These steps could return the parties to the table," said Annan's statement.
TOP US STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TO VISIT MIDEAST
Edward Walker, the assistant US secretary of state for the Near East, will visit Jordan, Syria and Turkey this weekend for talks on Iraq and the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians, said reports.
The trip is Walker's second to the region to help tighten sanctions against exports of weapons to Iraq, a US official said Friday, cited by The Associated Press-Albawaba.com
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