Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday, one of them a leader assassinated in a missile strike, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair continued meeting with regional leaders to plead for support in Afghanistan and a quieter Middle East, said reports.
An Israeli helicopter missile killed a senior member of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Wednesday, said AP, and Israeli troops gunned down five other militants.
In a midmorning Israeli strike, the helicopter gunship blew up a barn in the West Bank city of Hebron, killing Jamil Jadallah, who the Israeli army said was a senior Hamas member involved in dozens of attacks against Israelis, according to the agency.
Another Hamas member, Abdullah Jarwushi, was killed by an Israeli tank in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem, while two Palestinian policemen were killed by Israeli soldiers who ambushed them near Bazaria, about 15 miles northwest of Nablus, officials from Arafat's Fateh movement said.
The Israeli army said the two Fateh members were among four Palestinians who started firing at an Israeli car. The other two Palestinians fled, the army told the agency.
After nightfall, Israeli troops in the re-occupied town of Qalqilya, one of four Israel has taken, opened fire on armed Palestinians, killing two, the Israeli military said.
According to Reuters, Israeli gunfire also wounded four Palestinians during fighting in the Gaza Strip overnight.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, meanwhile, claimed he was ready to negotiate with the Palestinians to end the latest uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation.
"We are ready to negotiate. Myself, I am going to lead those negotiations. I really believe in that," Sharon told members of the World Jewish Congress meeting in occupied Jerusalem, according to agencies.
Sharon has previously insisted on an end to violence before negotiations start, but he did not mention that condition Wednesday.
Reacting angrily to the one-day death toll of six, Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman said, "There can be no ceasefire while Sharon's finger is on the trigger," reported AP.
Over 700 Palestinians and over 190 Israelis have died in the 13-month uprising.
BLAIR ROLLS THROUGH MIDEAST TO PROMOTE PEACE TALKS
Despite receiving little support for the attacks on Afghanistan from Syrian and Saudi leaders on the first stops of his tour of the Middle East, UK premier Tony Blair was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian officials said, cited by Reuters.
Washington and its allies see reviving peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians as important to shoring up Arab and Muslim support for the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, their prime suspect for September's attacks in the United States, said the agency.
In Syria, Blair stood next to President Bashar Al Assad on Wednesday as the Syrian leader denounced the Western bombing of Afghanistan for causing "hundreds" of civilian casualties, said CNN.
In an apparent reference to Israel's military occupation of Palestinian and Lebanese soil since 1967, Assad also pointed out that "Resisting occupation is an international right. An act of resistance is different from an act of terrorism."
It was Blair's first face-to-face confrontation with the controversy caused by the US and UK war, although aides insisted later he had expected Assad to restate his well-known hostility to the bombing, reported the network.
Blair then travelled to Saudi Arabia where he had talks in Riyadh with King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah.
There, Blair delivered his familiar message to critics of the bombing campaign, telling reporters: "My response is very clear.
"We undertook the action against the Al Qaeda network and the Taliban regime that shelters them after several weeks in which we had given the Taliban every opportunity to deliver up those responsible for the Sept. 11 atrocities," he told the press in Riyadh.
Analysts have pointed to a widening gap between the West and the US-led allies over the Afghanistan war, particularly in view of increasing Arab and Muslim anger over TV footage of killed and wounded civilians.
Blair said Saudi Arabia had agreed to back efforts for a broad-based government in Afghanistan when the current war ended, according to CNN - Albawaba.com
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