An 11-year-old Palestinian girl died of a gunshot wound Saturday in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli occupation troops reinforced a blockade aimed at deterring shooting attacks against Jewish settlers living in internationally illegal settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory. The Palestinian girl died in Rafah Hospital while undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound to the leg, physicians said. Her family said she was hit while walking home from school and the bullet came from the direction of an Israeli occupation army outpost.

RESISTANCE ACTIVISTS ATTACK SETTLER

Late Saturday, an Israeli occupation soldier was lightly injured in the Gaza Strip when a Palestinian resistance activist threw grenades and opened fire as he tried to infiltrate the internationally illegal Jewish settlement of Morag.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine later took responsibility for the attack in a call to The Associated Press, saying it was retaliation for Israeli aggression against Palestinians.

In a separate incident at the internationally illegal settlement of Kfar Darom, occupation soldiers shot at an armed Palestinian who approached the community, the occupation army said. Israeli radio said occupation soldiers saw that they hit the Palestinian but did not know his condition.

. GAZA DIVIDED INTO THREE CANTONS

The occupation army continued Saturday to maintain checkpoints along major roads connecting the north and the south of Gaza Strip, making them impassable to Palestinians. The occupation army said the operation was undertaken because of an escalation in shooting attacks, the latest on Friday in which a rabbi was killed.

"The troops cut the strip into three parts in the Gush Katif junction and Netzarim junction in order to prevent the flow of terrorists and weapons," an occupation army spokesman said. "The army will allow humanitarian cases to pass."

MORE PALESTINIANS ARRESTED

The occupation army also said it had arrested two Islamic Jihad activists who were implicated in 'terrorist' attacks and set off explosions that destroyed their homes. Occupation troops also arrested two Palestinians wanted by the occupation army.

At the end of the operation the troops withdrew from the Deir el-Balah area. They had entered the town on Friday in a failed search for an activist of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.

ISRAELIS SHOOT AT GERMAN MEMBER OF EU OBSERVER TEAM IN JENIN

The German Foreign Ministry said a German member of a European Union observer team was shot at as he drove through the West Bank town of Jenin but was not injured. Palestinian sources said the German was targeted because the activists thought he was an Israeli.

PA DISAPPOINTED AT OUTCOM OF QUARTED SESSION IN WASHINGTON

In Ramallah, meanwhile, an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expressed disappointment with senior diplomats meeting in the United States for failing to call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian territory.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh also said representatives of the so-called Quartet - the United States, the United Nations, Russia, the European Union - who met in Washington on Friday - buckled to Israeli pressure by not issuing a road map for peacemaking.

"Delaying the implementation of the road map came after clear Israeli demands to delay it," Abu Rdeneh said. "I believe this position will help Israel continue its escalations and aggression."

PHOTO CAPTION

The body of 11-year-old Nada Madi is carried for burial along the streets of the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip , Friday Dec. 20, 2002. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)