Israel said yesterday that violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip had dropped by as much as 40 per cent since a truce last week, and the Palestinians announced steps to keep children away from battle zones.
But Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian as gunfire crackled outside Rachel's Tomb, a shrine holy to both Muslims and Jews at the entrance to Bethlehem in the West Bank. And a Palestinian in a fishing boat blew himself up off Gaza in what the Israeli navy called a fumbled suicide attack on one of its patrol boats.
Hospital officials in Gaza said a Palestinian died of wounds sustained three days ago in a clash.
The deaths raised to 178 the number of people killed in almost six weeks of violence. Most of the dead were Palestinians and about one in four were aged 18 or younger.
At the flashpoint Karni and Erez crossings on the Israel-Gaza border, at least 23 Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli forces, hospital sources said.
In a new diplomatic offensive, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, sent a message to "all world leaders . . . emphasising Israel's adherence to agreements compared with the Palestinian side's violations", his office said.
"The Prime Minister called on world leaders to draw Arafat's attention to the need to honour his commitments, stop the violence and avoid unilateral steps," it said, referring in part to a declaration of a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and the former Israeli prime minister, Mr Shimon Peres, reached an agreement last Thursday to end the violence, which has shifted mainly from Palestinian stone-throwers clashing with Israeli troops to after-dark shooting attacks in the West Bank and Gaza.
Mr Arafat, due to meet President Clinton at the White House tomorrow, planned to push his call for an international force to protect his people. The idea is opposed by Mr Barak.
"This is our right. It's the right of every country that is being exposed to aggression to ask," the Palestinian Authority President said.