[Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (R) meets U.S. envoy to the Middle East William Burns June 23, 2001 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Read photo caption below].


GAZA CITY, June 23 (AFP) -
The faltering Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire was closer to going off the rails Saturday as another Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops despite intensive diplomatic efforts to salvage the truce.

US envoy William Burns met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah in a bid to keep the situation from escalating, but several other violent incidents erupted across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mohannad Suidan, 22, was killed and two other Palestinians wounded early Saturday near the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said, without giving further details on the incident.

The armed wing of militant group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for a Friday suicide bombing in the Gaza Strip that killed two Israeli soldiers, announced that Suidan was also a member.

The group said Suidan had been "martyred" on course to plant explosives by the central Gaza Strip settlement of Kfar Darom.

For its part, the Israeli army said from Jerusalem that three palestanians had tried to infiltrate Israel, adding that one of them had been killed and the other two arrested. A revolver and several grenades were also seized.

A top Palestinian security official in Gaza told AFP that Arafat's Palestinian Authority had in the past few days arrested an unspecified number of militants and seized mortars in their possession.

The Palestinian security council, which groups police and security chiefs generally with Arafat, also held a special session in Gaza "to discuss the situation on the ground and the application of the ceasefire," the official said.




Meanwhile, Hamas also held a symbolic funeral for the suicide bomber, Ismail Bechir Moassouabi, 27, from the day before in the Gaza Strip, the first suicide bombing since the fragile ceasefire came into effect.

Hamas members vowed at the ceremony to "intensify the armed struggle against Israel" and denounced the crackdown on anti-Israeli activists.

Israel and the Palestinians have repeatedly accused each other of not living up to the terms of the June truce accord negotiated by US CIA chief George Tenet, which include a call for the Palestinians to arrest suspected militants.

"It's obvious that there cannot be a military solution to the problem," said Burns after meeting with Arafat.

"It's only through the political process that security can be re-established," he said, underlining "the importance the American administration attaches to both sides in fulfilling their obligations."

Saeb Erakat, who was the lead negotiator in peace talks with Israel, told reporters that Arafat for his part had stressed the "aggressions and crimes" being committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

He also underscored the Palestinian insistence on a timetable for carrying out the recommendations of the US-led Mitchell commission, which include a freeze on new Jewish settlements.

Settlers have engaged in repeated acts of vandalism in recent days, following the murder of three settlers in separate shooting attacks this week in the Palestinian territories.

At least five Palestinians were wounded near Ramallah when Israeli troops opened fire with rubber-coated bullets and tear gas on protesters who were demonstrating against settlers' burning of olive groves, witnesses said.

An Israeli army position near the Gaza Strip settlement of Neve Dekalim came under fire from Palestinians early Saturday but there were no casualties, an army spokesman said.

Israeli patrols and positions in the West Bank also came under fire around dawn, while four anti-tank grenades were fired on an army position in Rafah along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, the spokesman said.

Palestinian sources said Israeli tanks and bulldozers destroyed 20 houses after they made an incursion onto Palestinian territory in the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian official said there had been no reason for the attack.

Fourteen people, eight Palestinians and six Israelis, have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect on June 13 and more than 620 people have died since the Palestinian uprising against Israel began in September.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is due in the region next week, to breath life into the sagging ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to visit the White House on Tuesday for talks with President Bush, and will stop off in Britain to consult with Prime Minister Tony Blair along the way.

Sharon, who has come under growing fire from settlers and hardliners to strike back at the Palestinians over the bloodshed, told Israeli television Friday a diplomatic track was needed to resolve the impasse created by the foundering ceasefire.
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PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (R) meets U.S. envoy to the Middle East William Burns June 23, 2001 in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Burns is working to preserve a truce that showed signs of unraveling after two Israeli soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing. The militant Islamic group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the attack, pledged to carry out more bombings during a mock funeral for suicide bomber Ismail Bashir al-Massoubi, 27, in the Gaza Strip. (Osama Silwadi/Reuters)
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