Palestinian activist killed in explosion

Mr Sharon was expected to reiterate his position that Israel will not conduct negotiations with the Palestinians until there has been a complete cessation of violence.

The Palestinian activist, Osama Jawabri, was using the phone on a square in the old city of Nablus when it exploded, witnesses said. Two children, a four-year-old boy, and his two-year-old sister, were slightly wounded by the blast, the witnesses added.

Mr Jawabri was a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group that has claimed responsibility for the killings of Jewish settlers during the current uprising, according to activists in Nablus.

Mr Jawabri participated in bomb attacks in the West Bank and Israel and has long been a target for Israel, the activists added.

Palestinians said Israel was responsible for the killing and called it a violation of the ceasefire agreement brokered earlier this month by the United States.

‘‘With this assassination, Sharon has opened the gates of hell for the Israelis,’’ said Marwan Barghouti, a prominent member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Israel’s army declined to comment on the explosion.

Israel has targeted Palestinian militants, carrying out more than a dozen such killings since the Mideast violence began last September, according to the Palestinians.

Israel has acknowledged some of the attacks, and has declined to comment on others.

Since assuming power in March, Mr Sharon has made an end to the fighting a condition for resuming any negotiations with the Palestinians. He was expected to take the same message to the US.

‘‘We will not start unless it will be completely quiet, complete cessation. We’ll not move forward,’’ Mr Sharon said in a speech on Saturday night.

The senior US diplomat for the region, William Burns, Mr Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Saturday, and said afterwards that the US expected both sides to fulfil their commitments to the ceasefire, which was worked out by CIA director George Tenet.

‘‘It’s obvious that there can be no military solution to this problem,’’ Mr Burns told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. ‘‘It’s only through a political process that security can be re-established.’’

As part of increased American involvement, US Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to visit the region from Thursday, following Mr Sharon’s visit to Washington.

Mr Arafat, meanwhile, offered an unusually explicit assertion that Jewish settlers should not be targeted by Palestinians. The settlers have often been attacked.

‘‘I announced a total ceasefire, and the Palestinian leadership accepted it, and it includes all the Israelis,’’ Mr Arafat said on Saturday on Israel’s Channel Two, in response to a question about whether Palestinians were forbidden from firing on settlers under terms of the truce.

At the same time, Mr Arafat’s aide Saeb Erekat denounced what he called ‘‘settler terror,’’ in reference to settlers’ attacks on Palestinians.

Palestinians regard all Jewish settlements as illegal and have killed more than two dozen settlers in drive-by attacks and roadside shootings during nine months of violence.

In another development, the remains of a Palestinian suicide bomber killed in an attack on Israeli troops in Gaza on Friday were handed over to Palestinian police, and his funeral was expected to take place today.

The bomber died along with two Israeli soldiers, who were lured to a booby-trapped jeep by other Palestinians pretending to be in distress.

Since the outbreak of hostilities in late September, 498 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 117 on the Israeli side.