JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres were to discuss peacekeeping options on Monday after the killing of six Palestinians disrupted two weeks of relative calm.
Israeli occupation sources said the two would discuss cease-fire negotiations that Peres has held with Palestinian parliamentary speaker Ahmed Korei to try to end the 15-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
On Sunday, Israeli occupation forces killed six Palestinians in two incidents in the north of the Gaza Strip, hours after the occupation army reported a decline in attacks on Israelis since Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called for a halt to such assaults.
The occupation army said late on Sunday that three Palestinians were killed by tank fire near the perimeter fence of the Jewish settlement of Elei Sinai, on claiming they planned to break in and carry out an attack.
The Israeli government later said in a statement that three other Palestinians who, it claimed, crossed the border fence from Gaza were shot dead by security forces after they allegedly refused orders to stop. Israel's occupation Army Radio claimed the men were carrying bombs.
A Palestinian security official condemned the killings as assassinations. ``This proves that the Israelis do not want calm and are seeking to destroy any chance of moving toward negotiations. They are trying to provoke a Palestinian reaction,'' the official told Reuters.