Israeli occupation forces shot dead two Palestinians, including an 8-year-old boy, and a Palestinian resistance activist killed an Israeli in on-going intifadha confrontations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Tuesday. The bloodshed followed Israel's cancellation of plans to relax travel curbs on Palestinians for a four-day Muslim holiday. Israeli occupation army officials said the clampdown was necessary to prevent planned resistance attacks in Israel.

Palestinian hospital officials in the West Bank city of Qalqilya said the 8-year-old died after being hit in the chest by gunfire from occupation troops. They said 10 other Palestinians were wounded.

Israeli occupation army sources said its soldiers in Qalqilya fired at three Palestinians who had thrown Molotov cocktails at them. The sources said they had no immediate information about Palestinian casualties.

In Bethlehem, also in the West Bank, a Palestinian resistance man killed an Israeli near the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, witnesses said.

The Israeli's identity was not released. After the incident, Israeli occupation soldiers searched Palestinian homes and the occupation army slapped a curfew on Bethlehem.

Earlier in the day, occupation troops killed an armed Palestinian in the Gaza Strip near an occupation army post on the border with Israel, the occupation army said.

Israel's decision to continue the travel restrictions it has imposed in a 28-month-old Palestinian uprising for statehood prevented Palestinians from visiting relatives and friends in other towns during the Eid al-Adha holiday ending Friday.

'HUMAN CATASTROPHE'

"Israel's tightening of the siege on Palestinian cities exacerbates the human catastrophe in the Palestinian territories," Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Ahmed Korei, a top Palestinian official, met last week to discuss a possible Israeli army pullback from West Bank cities where Palestinian security services undertook to prevent attacks by Palestinian resistance groups.

Palestinians cut off from their families were angry. "This is in breach of all human values," said Kamal Assad, a 35-year-old Ramallah shop owner who had planned to visit his parents in the West Bank city of Jenin for the holiday.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Palestinian police officer, left, stands as hospital workers; show the body of Ahmed Salim to members of the media in Gaza City, Tuesday Feb. 11, 2003. Salim, 27, identified by Palestinian hospital officials as a Hamas military wing activist, was shot and killed by Israeli occupation soldiers late Monday near the Kasseri crossing into Israel, an Israeli occupation army spokesman said. (AP Photo/Lifters Parataxis)