Egyptian President Mr Hosni Mubarak met Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat today in a bid to save an Arab peace plan amid further violence in the Palestinian territories.
Top Arafat aide Mr Nabil Shaath said the talks, which lasted for around an hour, were to have focused on a joint Egyptian-Jordanian plan aimed at ending seven months of Palestinian-Israeli violence and restarting peace talks.
"We are going to study ways to protect this plan from Israeli attempts to sabotage it and to write off the most important points," Mr Shaath said earlier, complaining that the "United States was standing by Israel's side."
Before meeting Arafat, President Mubarak held talks with the premier of Germany's state of Bavaria, Mr Edmund Stoiber.
"I had the feeling President Mubarak is very worried. Mubarak is not optimistic about efforts for peace," Mr Stoiber said during a visit to Egypt.
In the Palestinian territories, witnesses said Israeli troops killed Mr Ahmad Khalil Issa Ismail (36) in a hail of bullets outside his shop in the village of Artas, near Bethelehem.
Mr Ismail had spent eight years in Israeli prisons before being released 18 months ago.
An Israeli army spokesman told AFPhe had "no knowledge of this matter." But an official of Islamic Jihad, which has carried out numerous anti-Israeli attacks, accused Israel of "continuing its policy of liquidating Palestinians.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "this murder will not go unpunished."
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, a police officer died of wounds sustained when he was shot in an Israeli attack last week that destroyed a police post in the Gaza Strip, a hospital source said.
Mr Abid Abu Ariban (57) a lieutenant in the Palestinian border police, had been shot in the chest in the attack on April 28th.
In the West Bank town of Jericho Israeli tanks fired four shells at buildings of the Palestinian intelligence services, wounding at least four people.
The shells were fired from an Israeli position overlooking the Palestinian-controlled town of Jericho and had not been preceded by Palestinian attacks.
In a separate incident, two mortar bombs were fired by Palestinians on the Kfar Aza kibbutz just outside the Gaza Strip, prompting the Israeli army to respond with four tank shells directed at a Palestinian police post near Beit Hanun.
The Palestinian attack, which caused no injuries, was the first on Israel since April 16th, when mortars were fired on the nearby town of Sderot. It came despite Arafat's orders last Saturday for mortar attacks to stop.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon visited the Morag and Atzmona settlements in the Gush Katif bloc in the south of the Gaza Strip to reassure residents about their security.
AFP