Israeli occupation soldiers killed a Palestinian toddler and wounded two others in Gaza Monday, hospital officials and witnesses said. The shooting came as Israeli leaders weighed a military response to a Palestinian shooting rampage that killed five people. In the second straight day of violence, the 2-year-old boy was killed shortly after 7 p.m. while he played ball in Rafah. Israel's occupation. The boy's uncle said there had been no fighting in the area.

Meanwhile, expectation mounted of an Israeli operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, where Israeli officials said

Sunday's shooting rampage in Kibbutz Metzer - a community that symbolized Jewish-Arab coexistence - had been planned.

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the kibbutz attack. Palestinians maintained the shooting was carried out by rogues and Arafat promised an investigation.

Either way, the violence bodes ill for the mission of U.S. envoy David Satterfield, who arrived Monday to promote a plan for restarting Mideast peace negotiations and establishing a Palestinian state with provisional borders by next year.

Satterfield was to meet Monday with other representatives of the so-called Quartet backing the plan - the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations.

Officials at Rafah Hospital officials said 2-year-old Nafeth Mashal died from a bullet wound to the back. They said two other children, ages 8 and 14, were moderately wounded.

Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said the Israeli response will be "within the parameters" of other recent actions - seeming to rule out the expulsion of Arafat, even though the government's top decision-makers, Sharon, Mofaz and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have supported the idea.

Netanyahu - who is challenging Sharon for the Likud Party leadership primary in hopes of emerging as prime minister after a scheduled January 28 general election - on Monday repeated his long-standing call for "expelling Arafat's terror regime" but said the timing should be chosen carefully.

The main obstacle to Arafat's expulsion appears at the moment to be continued U.S. opposition, at a time when Washington prepares for possible war with Iraq and wants to avoid antagonizing the Arab world.

The latest violence came on the same day that Fatah officials and the resistance Hamas group launched talks in Cairo. Fatah officials have said they were going to demand that Hamas halt attacks inside Israel. Hamas says it will continue attacks.

PHOTO CAPTION

Khalil Mashal mourns over his two-year-old son Nafeth at Najar hospital in Rafah southern Gaza Strip (news - web sites), Monday Nov. 11, 2002. Israeli troops in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Tuesday shot dead a two-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded two other children, hospital officials and witnesses said. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)