The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, played down the chances of any movement in the Middle East peace process yesterday and said Israel would continue to target directly Palestinian militia commanders.
His comments came on a day in which violence escalated further in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier killed.
Visiting an Israeli army outpost near the West Bank town of Ramallah, Mr Barak, who is to meet President Clinton tomorrow, said it was "too far-fetched to predict right now a resumption of negotiations".
"We want to try and bring an end to the violence," he added. But almost in the same breath, Mr Barak warned Israel would continue with operations like the planned killing of a Palestinian regional paramilitary commander on Thursday.
"Whoever hurts us will get hurt", vowed Mr Barak, referring to the assassination of Mr Hussein Abayat, who was killed when his van was rocketed by an Israeli attack helicopter. Mr Abayat was a member of the Tanzim militia which is affiliated with the Fatah party of the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat. Israel insisted he had been involved in shooting attacks in which three Israeli soldiers were killed.
Thousands attended the funeral yesterday of Mr Abayat, a Muslim from the predominantly Christian Bethlehem suburb of Beit Sahour, and church bells were sounded in Bethlehem's Manger Square before the burial. Two women passers-by who had been killed in the attack were also buried yesterday.
After Mr Abayat's funeral, violent clashes fanned out across the West Bank. The Israeli soldier was fatally wounded when he was hit in the neck by Palestinian gunfire at Rachel's Tomb, a Jewish holy site on the outskirts of Bethlehem. An Israeli border police officer was lightly wounded yesterday when a small explosive device detonated at the Lion's Gate entrance to the Old City.
The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops continued to rise yesterday, with another three being shot dead. Two were killed at the Karni commercial crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, while a third, 15-year-old Mazzen Azaka, died in the West Bank city of Jenin when he was hit in the chest by a bullet. Dozens of Palestinians were injured in the clashes. Over 190 people have been killed since the hostilities erupted in late September, the vast majority of them Palestinians.
Through the afternoon there were also heavy exchanges of gunfire between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus. In Ramallah eyewitnesses reported seeing Israeli tanks fire several shells at a building from which Palestinian gunmen were shooting. With the gunfire intensifying, the Israeli army sealed off Bethlehem and Ramallah, barring Palestinians from entering or leaving the two cities.
In an attempt to forestall further protests yesterday, Israel again barred Palestinians under the age of 45 from attending midday prayers at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site. Dozens of youths who were not allowed to participate in the Friday prayer worshipped outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, and then clashed with police.
Mr Arafat, who met Mr Clinton on Thursday, was at the UN yesterday trying to garner support for his demand that a UN force be dispatched to the region to protect his people. Both Israel and the US have flatly rejected the idea. While the Palestinian leader said Israel was solely to blame for the violence, and that the Palestinians were engaging in self-defence, he did not rule out the possibility of a future summit with Mr Barak. But he did add "such summits have to be prepared very carefully".