A Palestinian suicide bomber in a jeep killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded a third yesterday when he blew himself up on a road they were patrolling in the northern Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
The bloodshed came as US and European envoys met Israeli leaders to shore up the shaky truce between the Palestinians and Israelis. Each side has now suffered six fatalities since the ceasefire went into effect nine days ago.
The Israelis explained to their guests that their blockades of Palestinian areas stemmed from security concerns, and lamented that the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, was not fulfilling his pledges to prevent acts of violence against Israeli targets.
Under a ceasefire agreement reached 10 days ago, Israel was to have lifted the blockades and redeployed its troops to the positions they held before the intifada erupted last September.
Mr Arafat charges that Israel's refusal to do so is a grievous breach of the ceasefire. But the Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, told the American Assistant Secretary of State, Mr William Burns, that Israel would be pleased to pull back the troops as soon as Mr Arafat went to battle in earnest against Palestinian militants.
It was just hours after the Peres-Burns meeting that the bombing attack took place. Israel responded with tank and gunfire, injuring three Palestinians. At the Camp David talks last July, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had discussed with Mr Bill Clinton the idea of the then-president seeking to raise more than $10 billion from the international community to help resolve the Palestinian refugee crisis.
Yesterday, in a sorry illustration of how hopes of resolving any aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have collapsed since the failure of that summit, the United Nations body responsible for refugees issued a desperate appeal for $77 million for food and medicines.
Mr Peter Hansen, Commissioner-General of the UN's Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), highlighted the drastic economic impact that nine months of intifada violence have had on the Palestinian territories. With unemployment soaring, 100,000 Palestinians who used to work in Israel are now kept out of the country and away from their jobs. Israeli blockades restrict the flow of essential items into Palestinian cities.