JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Fighting raged in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Monday despite new U.S.-led efforts to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to hold truce talks. (Read photo caption below)At least one Palestinian was killed and an Israeli occupation soldier seriously hurt -- the latest casualties in a year of a Palestinian intifadha, uprising, against Israeli occupation. .
The United States is calling for greater efforts to end the intifadha as it tries to bring Arab and Islamic states into an anti-terror coalition after last week's attacks in New York and Washington.
The European Union is also pressing on with efforts to bring the two sides together for truce talks.
Its Middle East envoy, Miguel Moratinos, met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Gaza on Monday evening and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer spoke to Arafat by telephone, Palestinian officials said. There was no word of a breakthrough.
Arafat, in greetings to Israelis on the Jewish New Year holiday, reiterated a cease-fire order.
``I have issued strict instructions for a total commitment to the cease-fire and I hope the Israeli government will respond to this peace appeal and will take the decision to cease fire,'' Arafat said in a letter released by his office.
Raanan Gissin, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said: ``We welcome his greetings but we wish he will really act on his words and take the necessary action to stop the shooting.''
But Sharon, who said truce talks could start only if violence stops for 48 hours, said Israel would not make concessions to the Palestinians to help the formation of any U.S.-led coalition.
``Our clear, unequivocal answer is that this will not be at our expense,'' he told the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
DIPLOMATIC DRIVE
On Sunday Sharon blocked his dovish foreign minister, Shimon Peres, from meeting Arafat, and made such talks conditional on at least 48 hours of peace. The Palestinians accused Sharon of setting new conditions in an attempt to thwart peace moves.
A Western diplomat said Arafat held talks late on Sunday with Sharon's son Omri, who has often conveyed messages to the Palestinian leader from the Israeli prime minister.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington he had spoken to Sharon on Sunday about that meeting and that the United States was determined to end the violence.
``I can assure you I haven't taken the U.S. eye off that ball,'' he said, calling for negotiations ``in due course.'' ``We do have to do something about the situation in the Middle East.''Arafat sent a letter to U.S. President George Bush which ''reaffirmed the Palestinian commitment to a complete cease-fire,'' Arafat's senior aide, Nabil Abu Rdainah, told Reuters.
He said U.S. Consul General Ron Schlicher had given Arafat a letter from Powell ``reaffirming the U.S. part to continue to push for peace talks.''
FIGHTING DESPITE TRUCE TALK
On Monday, a Palestinian national security force officer died of wounds sustained in fighting last week when Israeli forces launched an incursion into a West Bank town. Israel said it raided Jericho in response to Palestinian attacks.
A 33-year-old Palestinian was killed on the sidelines of a battle between Israeli occupation soldiers and Palestinian Resistance men in the southern Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt.
Palestinian security officials said an Israeli tank had fired four shells at the Sheikh Ijleen coastal area just south of Gaza City and blocked one of the two main roads running north to south in Gaza.
Israeli occupation troops fired on a hill above the center of the West Bank city of Hebron with shells and machineguns, witnesses and Palestinian security sources said. Each side said the other had fired first.
Palestinian hospital officials said 11 people were wounded in fighting near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Several houses were damaged by Israeli tank shells. The Israeli occupation army said a soldier was seriously wounded.
The occupation army said Palestinians threw hand grenades at a military post near Gaza's border with Egypt.
Israeli occupation forces were on alert for attacks by Islamic Resistance men over New Year, or Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah started at sundown on Monday and ends at sundown on Wednesday.
While the world focused on events in the United States, the Israeli occupation army announced it would make an 18-mile-long area of the West Bank adjacent to the Israeli border off-limits to Palestinians, save for local villagers.
The army said the aim was to stop Resistance bombers from reaching Israeli cities. Palestinians called it another obstacle to peace which harmed ``thousands and thousands of Palestinians.''
PHOTO CAPTION:
Palestinian boys throw stones at an Israeli tank during clashes near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in Gaza Strip September 17, 2001. Palestinian and Israeli leaders jockeyed over urgent U.S. calls for truce talks as fighting raged on in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Washington has pushed for intensified efforts to end a year of Israeli-Palestinian intifadha, uprising, since last week's terror attacks in New York and Washington. (Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters)