THE MIDDLE EAST: Four Israelis were shot dead by Palestinian gunmen at a West Bank settlement last night. The two gunmen burst into a house at Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire on the family which lived there. Two of the victims were children. One of the gunmen was later shot dead, but exchanges of gunfire were continuing late last night.
Earlier yesterday, an appeal by the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, for a halt to attacks on civilians fell largely on deaf ears - being rejected by Islamic militants and even some of his own purported loyalists, greeted with scepticism by the Bush Administration and dismissed as duplicitous by Israel.
But it did seem to resonate among participants at a demonstration in Gaza - a gathering formally titled a "March of Hunger," which featured demands not just for food and economic assistance, but also for an end to the killings on both sides and a renewed effort to negotiate a path out of 21 months of conflict.
Following the deaths of 26 Israelis in two suicide bombings in Jerusalem on Tuesday and Wednesday, Mr Arafat had indicated that he would make a televised Arabic plea for a halt to such attacks. In the event, a statement in his name was read out on Palestinian television, in which he said that the "national interest" required that "these attacks stop completely." Otherwise, he warned, there might be "full Israeli occupation of our lands."
Speaking to reporters later, Mr Arafat added that his "permanent message" was one of opposition to "these terrorist activities against civilians". Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Mr Arafat's own Tanzim and Al-Aksa brigades chorused their rejection. Nafez Azzam, an Islamic Jihad leader, for instance, described the bombings as "legitimate self-defence" in a war "imposed on us by Israel."
A White House spokesman, employing the same language that has followed numerous such calls by the Palestinian leader in recent months, underlined the Bush Administration's profound scepticism of Mr Arafat's anti-terror convictions. "The progress the president is looking for is not rhetorical - it's meaningful," he said.
And Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, was predictably derisive. Far from seeking to thwart the bombings, Mr Arafat's "Palestinian terror authority" was behind them, he said.
Mr Arafat's language echoed an appeal for a halt to the killing of civilians in Israel, published in a Palestinian newspaper on Wednesday, which has now attracted 200 signatories.
It was endorsed by many of the 1,500 at yesterday's Gaza "March of Hunger" - who rallied under banners demanding an end to Israeli occupation and PA "negligence" and demanded that Mr Arafat and Mr Sharon resume dialogue.
Marchers held out empty pots to illustrate the economic crisis: most of the 40,000 Gazans who used to work in Israel before the intifada erupted in September 2000, are now unemployed, and overall joblessness in the West Bank and Gaza is at 33 per cent; seven out of 10 Palestinians depend on regular UN food aid, and 50 per cent of Palestinians are living in poverty.
An armed Palestinian man was shot dead yesterday after he tried to raid a Jewish study centre at the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, the army said. A second Palestinian, who infiltrated a northern West Bank Jewish settlement last night, also was shot dead by Israeli soldiers.