The fate of a Middle East peace plan hung in the balance on Sunday as fresh violence stymied efforts to establish even a seven-day period of calm supposed to precede the key steps of an agreement.
Palestinian security officials said Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in a gunbattle in the northern West Bank which raged for about two hours early on Sunday. They said the bodies were recovered by the Israeli army.
Israeli Brigadier-General Benny Gansz said the Palestinians who were killed were planting two roadside bombs on a road near an army base. They were killed during an exchange with a group of soldiers on patrol in the area.
The Palestinian officials said one of the two men was a member of the militant Islamic group Hamas's military wing and the other was an officer in the Palestinian police forces.
Their deaths brought the toll to 10 Palestinians and seven Israelis killed since a truce brokered by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet took effect on June 13.
In the latest in a spate of West Bank shootings, Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded an Israeli-Arab truck driver who was delivering baked goods to Jewish settlements.
Fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border on Friday and violence at West Bank and Gaza Strip flashpoints on Saturday took the shine off a three-day peace mission by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell's main achievement was to persuade the sides to agree on a seven-day period of calm before a peace plan crafted by former US Senator George Mitchell kicks in. Bureau Report