HIGHLIGHTS: Israel Blames Attacks on Settlers on PA||Israeli Opposition Leader Wants Bush to Pressure Sharon to Freeze Building Settlements in the West Bank||Peres Speaks of Trading Settlements for Palestinian Refugees' Right of Return|| STORY: In the West Bank, four Israelis were injured in an attack on the Jewish settlement of Yitzhar, south of Nablus, on Saturday night, Israeli media reported. (Read photo caption)

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian Resistance man who attacked the settlement and troops were searching for accomplices, Israeli occupation army radio said.

Hours earlier, Palestinian Resistance men carried out a nearly identical attack on the settlement of Karmei Tsur, near Hebron, killing three settlers.

Armed settlers shot dead one of the Palestinian Resistance men as the other escaped.

An Israeli military spokesman blamed the Palestinian Authority for the attack at Karmei Tsur, accusing it of "doing nothing to prevent such acts".

Shortly afterwards, Israeli forces entered the nearby Palestinian-ruled town of Halhoul, and carried out house-to-house searches for the escaped Resistance man.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said it shot dead two Palestinians attempting to infiltrate the Jewish coastal settlement of Dugit by swimming ashore in what is thought to be the first Palestinian attempt to attack a settlement by sea.

SETLLERS PART OF AN ARMY TO USURP ARAB TERRITORY

Jewish settlements illegally built on occupied Palestinian land have been frequent targets of Palestinian militants during their 20-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation.

Palestinians see settlers as part of an army usurping Arab lands.

ISRAELI OPPOSITION LEADER CALLS ON BUSH TO PRESSURE SHARON TO FREEZ BUILDING SETTLEMENTS

Israeli opposition leader and Meretz MK Yossi Sarid Friday called on President George W. Bush to pressure Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to completely freeze building in West Bank settlements when the two meet Monday.

Sarid was quoted by Israel Radio as saying Bush should be aware that although Sharon, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres have issued promises about freezing building there, in effect this was not carried out.

Dozens of new settlements were founded using "diverse tricks" during this government's term, Sarid said. "Just as Arafat lies to the entire world about terror," he said, "so do Sharon and his men about the settlements."

Peres said Friday that one of the ideas being considered for the Sharon-Bush talks was to base a Mideast solution on a settlements-for-refugees compromise.

"There is something new emerging in the United States which says that the Palestinians will give up on the right of return in exchange for Israel giving up on all the settlements" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Peres told Israel Radio. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat asked the United States Friday to convene a Mideast peace conference as quickly as possible.

PHOTO CAPTION

An international commission, headed by the former American senator George Mitchell, investigating the Israeli-Palestinian violence has called for a halt to all Israeli settlement building on occupied land. The Commission's report published, May 2001, warned that it will be hard to stop the violence unless all settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is frozen.