Israeli occupation forces killed two Palestinian Resistance menTuesday, including one wanted for plotting a bombing, as they were returning to their hiding place in a West Bank cave. The killings came after the first high-level talks in months between Israelis and Palestinians on ways to end 22 months of violence in which more than 2,000 people have been killed.
Palestinians sent conflicting signals over an Israeli proposal at the meeting late Monday to ease some restrictions on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in a so-called trial gesture to restore security cooperation and ease hardships on Palestinians.
Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, an aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafa, said the "Gaza-first" proposal was "totally rejected."

But another senior Palestinian source said the Palestinians had accepted the plan and would hold further talks with Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

Both Resistance men killed today belonged to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has links to Arafat's Fatah faction, Palestinian sources said.

Israel had been hunting one of the men, Ali Adjuri, for weeks. It believes he masterminded a bombing in a foreign workers district of Tel Aviv on July 17 that killed five people, including a Romanian and two Chinese. (Read photo caption)

In Jerusalem, police arrested a 17-year-old Palestinian they said intended to carry out a bombing. Police said they found explosives she planned to use in a field outside the city.

SECURITY TALKS

At Monday's security talks, Ben-Eliezer met Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya, intelligence chief Amin al-Hindi and Mohammed Dahlan, a security adviser to Arafat.

Despite the meeting, Israel launched a helicopter missile attack against a foundry it said produced weapons in the Gaza Strip, setting the workshop ablaze and wounding two people.

Ben-Eliezer's office said in a statement that he proposed that "Palestinian security forces will act to reduce terror and following this the Israeli security forces will take steps that will ease security conditions."

Israeli forces have occupied seven Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank since Resistance men carried out two bombings in rapid succession in Jerusalem in mid-June.

Violence surged at the weekend, with Palestinian Resistance men killing nine people in a bombing on a bus Sunday. Four other Israelis died in attacks in the following hours.

Eight Palestinians have died in the latest violence, including the bus bomber, another who opened fire on Israelis in East Jerusalem, a suspected Resistance man who Israel said was killed by his own bomb and the two men killed Tuesday.

Israel has responded to the attacks by declaring a travel ban on Palestinians in much of the West Bank and blocking the southern Gaza city of Rafah with tanks.

At the United Nations, the General Assembly called for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank cities and end the "dire humanitarian situation" facing Palestinians.

The U.N. resolution followed a report funded by CARE International and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which found one in five young Palestinian children is suffering from malnutrition.

PHOTO CAPTION

Ali Ajouri, a member of the Al Alqsa Martyrs' Brigades, is seen in this undated family photo released Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002. Ajouri and another Palestinian militiaman were killed Tuesday in the northern West Bank in what witnesses said was an attack by Israeli troops. Ajouri was accused by Israel of having sent two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in Tel Aviv on July 17. Three foreign workers and two Israelis were killed in the attack. (AP Photo/HO)
- Aug 06 9:51 AM