Two Palestinian resistance fighters killed two Israeli occupation soldiers in an attack on an occupation army post in the West Bank on Thursday before occupation troops shot them dead. The Israeli occupation army, which killed two Palestinians in other incidents, said its troops were taking part in an emergency drill against such attacks at the time.

The violence raised the toll to nine Palestinians and two Israelis killed in the last two days, underlining how far the sides remain from ending 28 months of conflict as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tries to form a government.

The killings could threaten U.S. hopes of calm in the region as Washington prepares for a possible war in the Gulf.

Two Palestinian fighters tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate an occupation army outpost on the slopes of Mount Gerazim overlooking the center of the West Bank city of Nablus and then fired at it from the outside. .

An Israeli officer, a sergeant and the two Palestinian fighters were killed in the ensuing gun battle.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, said in a joint statement they carried out the attack.

Also in the West Bank, occupation soldiers killed a Palestinian near Tulkarm, on the boundary with Israel. Palestinian witnesses said he was walking home off-road after a day's work in Israel, to avoid Israeli patrols.

In northern Israel, paramilitary border police shot dead an Arab man who tried to stab one of them after being stopped for an identity check, police said. A senior officer said the attacker was apparently a Palestinian from the West Bank.

COALITION TALKS

The five Palestinians killed on Wednesday included two medical workers shot dead at a hospital for the elderly on the edge of Gaza City and an old woman crushed in her home when Israeli forces razed her home. It was apparently razed because her stepson killed two Israelis in an attack two years ago.

Sharon's tough line against the 28-month-old Palestinian uprising for an independent state helped his right-wing Likud party to victory in a general election on January 28.

Likud won 38 of the 120 seats in parliament and hopes to form a coalition government. It was boosted by another two seats by forming an alliance on Thursday with the fringe center-right immigrant party Yisrael B'Aliya.

Sharon is likely to be asked by President Moshe Katzav to form a coalition, which the prime minister has said should be as broad as possible to meet what he calls the threat of "terrorism" and war in the Gulf.

He has appealed to the centrist Shinui party, which has 15 seats, and the center-left Labor Party, which has 19 mandates, to join him in a unity government.

PHOTO CAPTION

Two Palestinian men sit blindfolded after being detained by Israeli occupation soldiers near the West Bank city of Nablus, February 6, 2003. (Arik Sultan/Re