The dismembered body of a Hamas activist was found today near the West Bank town of Nablus, a Palestinian security official said.
Witnesses said intensive automatic rifle and an explosion had been heard last night in the area where 23-year-old Hani Rawajbeh's body was found. There was no immediate explanation offered for his death.
Two Arab Israelis were shot and injured in the West Bank late last night while driving a truck with Israeli licence plates. The shooting came hours after an Israeli tank incursion in a Palestinian self-rule area of the Gaza Strip levelled acres of farmland.
Despite the respite that followed Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat's crackdown on hardline Islamists this week, there were few signs of renewed peace talks with Israel today, as the United States focused on its air campaign in Afghanistan.
Mr Arafat made an initial step toward making good on promises to crack down in Islamist radicals at the weekend, sending his police out to arrest a handful of members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have refused to recognise his truce accord.
Washington called the moves encouraging and criticised Israel for its "provocative" incursions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Hebron, where Israeli tanks have re-occupied Palestinian land.
But Arafat's attempt to muzzle public displays of support for Osama bin Laden backfired on Monday, when his police got tough with Islamist anti-American protestors in Gaza City.
That sparked gunfights that left two dead and scores injured in the worst internal Palestinian unrest since the intifada began a year ago.
AFP