Three Israelis dead in renewed violence
Two Israelis were shot dead in the West Bank and an Israeli was gunned down in neighbouring Jordan today.
After nightfall, an Israeli motorist was shot while driving in the West Bank. His car overturned and he died of his wounds, the military said.
The deaths of the other two Israelis were shrouded in uncertainty.
With violence grinding on, no political initiatives appeared on the horizon. The Palestinians again appealed for an international force of observers to protect them from what they called Israeli aggression.
The Palestinians have been making such pleas for months, but Israelis are opposed to outside intervention, and no such contingent appeared likely.
The Israeli killed in the nighttime West Bank attack was driving on a main road across the West Bank, near the city of Nablus, when he was shot from a passing car, the army said. A medic told Israel radio that the 40-year-old Israeli, from a nearby settlement, died of bullet wounds, not from the effect of his car overturning.
Also in the West Bank, an Israeli was killed and another injured in a collision between their vehicle and a car driven by a Palestinian, Israel radio reported. It appeared to be a traffic accident, the radio report said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
The circumstances behind the killing of two other Israelis, one in the West Bank and the other in Jordan, were unclear.
Wael Ghanem, an Israeli Arab, was shot and killed as he drove toward the Jewish settlement of Tzofin in the West Bank, not far from where an Israeli woman was killed on Sunday.
Palestinian security sources said Ghanem was a collaborator with Israeli security during the first Palestinian uprising, from 1987-93. He moved to Israel and received citizenship, they said, indicating that he might have been killed because of his background.
However, he was driving a car with yellow Israeli licence plates on a West Bank road where a similar shooting attack had taken place, raising the possibility that Palestinian gunmen thought they were targeting an Israeli settler. More than 30 settlers have been killed in Palestinian ambushes and drive-by shootings since violence erupted September 28.
In Jordan, an Israeli businessman, Yitzhak Snir, was shot and killed outside his apartment in the capital of Amman. Two radical Arab groups claimed responsibility, but Jordanian officials said the killing might have been criminal in nature.
Snir, 51, a diamond dealer, had set up a joint venture with a Jordanian
businessman. In an official statement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry expressed sorrow at the death of Snir, who had set up a business in Jordan "within the framework of the continuing effort to expand the fruits of peace between the two countries".
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, but economic relations never took off. Opposition to relations with Israel has grown considerably in Jordan during the Palestinian uprising. About half of Jordan’s citizens are Palestinians.
In the Gaza Strip, clashes erupted at a daily flashpoint near the Israeli army post along the border with Egypt. Palestinians threw grenades and firebombs at Israeli soldiers, who returned the fire. Two Palestinians, ages 12 and 13, were wounded, hospital doctors said.
