Israeli occupation troops killed two Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday during stone-throwing clashes which erupted in the heart of the historic city, witnesses and hospital officials said.A total of 33 Palestinians were killed in violence this week, most of them during an Israeli occupation army offensive in the Gaza Strip that Israel said targeted the Islamic resistance group Hamas.

A senior Palestinian official said in remarks published on Saturday that the Palestinian leadership backed a proposed one-year cease-fire in the uprising to put the onus of the Middle East conflict on Israel.

The comments by Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, referred to a truce proposed by Egypt last month during talks in Cairo with main Palestinian nationalist and Islamist resistance groups .

President Yasser Arafat's Fatah resistance group has said it accepted the plan to end armed attacks, but key resistance groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and an armed offshoot of Fatah rejected it, demanding Israel cease killing Palestinians before signing any deal to end armed attacks in the 28-month-old revolt.

"We do not expect the Israeli government will stop its escalation against our people even if the Palestinian factions stopped their actions, but in that case the whole world will see for itself who is responsible for escalating the conflict," Abu Mazen, secretary-general of the PLO's Executive Committee told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.

"Therefore the accusations will be directed at Israel rather than the Palestinians," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

"This is why we (the Palestinian leadership) agreed to freeze military activities for one year."

Abu Mazen, who has been cited as a potential successor to Arafat, said he expected the Cairo talks would resume, possibly next week, and hoped the proposal would eventually win the backing of additional resistance groups needed to make a truce hold.

Arafat also pledged last week to appoint a prime minister, moving closer to a key demand by U.S. and European mediators to the conflict for a reform of his Palestinian Authority, but gave no candidate or starting date.

CLASH IN HEART OF NABLUS

In Nablus, Israeli occupation soldiers opened fire on a group of Palestinians who threw stones at them in the city's Casbah, killing two men, at least one of them a bystander, witnesses and hospital officials said.

The occupation army did not immediately comment on the killings, but said occupation soldiers had returned fire after a Palestinian youth threw a petrol bomb at occupation troops in the same area.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians vowed revenge on Friday in a funeral procession of a leading Hamas military commander who was killed by Israeli occupation forces during recent raids in Gaza which have overshadowed international peace efforts.

"(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon, prepare the coffins," organizers yelled through loudspeakers. "Revenge is coming soon, in Tel Aviv and Jaffa."

The occupation army stepped up its raids into Gaza after a Hamas land mine killed a four-man Israeli tank crew last week.

Hamas has also led a campaign of resistance bombings inside Israel since the uprising erupted in September 2000.

At least 1,862 Palestinians and 705 Israelis have been killed in the revolt which flared after U.S.-brokered peace talks on a Palestinian state failed.

PHOTO  CAPTION

Palestinian friends and relatives of 28 years old Tareq Abu Rahma pray around his body inside a mosque in Gaza city, February 22, 2003. Tareq Rahma was killed on Friday by the Israeli army when he was trying to enter the Jewish settlement of Dugit in Gaza, the Israeli army said. REUTERS/Jose Manuel Ribeir