Israeli soldiers have killed four Palestinians, including a nine-year-old boy, in the Gaza Strip this evening.
Military officials said soldiers shot dead three men who fled in a car after trying to carry out an attack on a Gaza Strip road used by Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers.
Palestinians earlier said a nine-year-old boy was killed by Israeli fire from a military outpost in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The army claimed its troops did not open fire any time this afternoon when the boy was reported to have been shot.
Earlier, Israel brushed aside US loan cuts imposed over a huge barrier and settlement expansion on occupied land - the latest nudge from its main ally to revive a stalled peace plan, but a move Palestinians said was not enough.
Momentum for more negotiations on the US-backed peace "road map" has been building since a new Palestinian government took office earlier this month and after an unusually quiet spell during more than three years of conflict.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shrugged off the US decision yesterday to cut nearly $290 million in a multi-billion package of loan guarantees.
"The fact is they aren't putting any political pressure on us to do anything on the substantive issues of the political process," he told Army Radio.
Part of the cuts corresponded to the costs of building a barrier singled out by US President George W. Bush as unhelpful to peace negotiations. Palestinians said the funding cut would not make Israel change its plans.
"I'm afraid that this step as a message will not deter Israel from continuing to build the wall and the settlements," said the Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat.
Israel says it needs a barrier of concrete, razor wire, ditches and electric fences to stop suicide attacks that have killed over 450 people in three years. Palestinians call it a bid to annex land taken in the 1967 Middle East war and say the Israelis must stop it if they are serious about the road map.