A wave of bloodshed across the West Bank and Gaza Strip has left 10 Palestinians dead, nine shot by Israeli troops and a suicide bomber, Israeli and Palestinian sources said today, with an Israeli pullout from Jenin unable to ease tensions.
The burst of killings began last night, a day after US Secretary of State Colin Powell left the region after failing to win a ceasefire and as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an armed multinational force to help end the violence.
The victims were said to include a nine-year-old boy and two unarmed civilians with multiple bullet wounds, while four Palestinians and the suicide bomber were involved in attacks on Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
As the Israeli army withdrew from Jenin, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the three-week-old "Operation Defensive Wall" in the West Bank, fresh incursions were made elsewhere.
Meanwhile US President Mr Bush said today he supported an inquiry into the deaths in the Jenin refugee camp, where Palestinians allege Israeli troops carried out a massacre.
"He wants the facts to be found" but has not yet expressed an opinion as to who should look into the situation, Bush spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer told reporters. "He supports an investigation."
Israel confirmed it had left Jenin town and its refugee camp but said it would maintain a presence near the area.
Three Palestinians were killed when Israeli tanks and troops entered the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Palestinian security and hospital sources said.
Two of the victims, aged 31 and 39, were said to be unarmed civilians. One was shot in the head twice in the head, and the other four times.
It was not known if the third victim, a 19-year-old, was carrying arms.
The incursion was confirmed by an Israeli military source who said a military unit opened fire after coming under grenade and automatic weapon fire.
In the northern West Bank town of Ramallah, a young Palestinian boy and a teenager were killed by Israeli fire, the head of the city's hospital, Mr Hosni Atari, told AFP.
Nine-year-old Mahmoud Abu Hadra was shot in the abdomen in the suburb of Beitunya yesterday evening, and the second victim, aged about 15, was shot in the head in the town centre this morning.
Ramallah resident Mr Yussef Abusamra said the teenager was killed when several Palestinians defied the curfew and went out on the streets to buy bread.
A suicide bomber exploded his car near a heavily fortified checkpoint at the entrance to the Israeli settlement bloc of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip, killing himself but only slightly wounding two soldiers, the Israeli military said.
Following the attack Israeli troops staged an incursion into an area round the southern village of Al Qarara, and troops blocked off the main north-south road through the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
The Israeli army also arrested a Palestinian woman in Bethlehem today who was suspected of plotting to stage a suicide attack in Israel, Palestinian security sources said.
Elsewhere, two armed Palestinians disguised as Israeli soldiers were shot dead overnight near the Netzarim Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli military spokesman said.
The men, who were carrying a ladder for scaling barbed wire, were preparing to mount an attack, he said. Kalashnikov rifles were found beside the bodies.
Another Palestinian carrying explosives was also shot dead last night while trying to infiltrate into the Dugit settlement in the north of the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
In the northern West Bank near the border with Israel a Palestinian was shot dead as he attacked a border guard with a knife, a military spokesman said.
AFP