Two Palestinians have been executed in public and a third has died of wounds sustained in a mysterious car explosion in the West Bank. Witnesses to the first incident said gunmen shot and killed the men, aged 21 and 25, after they had confessed to collaborating with Israeli intelligence. They said the gunmen played a videotape of the confessions to residents of the Tulkarm camp before executing the suspects in the street. In the West Bank city of Nablus, medical officials said a 15-year-old activist from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group linked to Palestinian President Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement, died of wounds sustained in a mysterious car explosion on Wednesday night. Palestinian security officials said the blast, which wounded two other people, may have been caused when a bomb detonated prematurely. But the officials did not rule out sabotage by Israeli intelligence. Israeli military sources denied responsibility. **Israel Plans New Homes for Jewish Settlers*** Israel was accused of trying to kill off a US-backed peace roadmap with plans for hundreds of new homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank, as backers of an alternative blueprint lobbied President Moshe Katzav for his support. Housing ministry spokesman Kobi Bleich confirmed that tenders had been invited to build 323 apartments -- 143 at Karnei Shomron in the northern West Bank and 180 apartments in Givat Zeev, to the north of Jerusalem. The decision prompted a furious reaction from the Palestinians with the Israeli government obliged under the terms of the roadmap to freeze settlement activity in the Palestinian territories. "This Israeli decision shows yet again that the Israeli government chooses the road of settlements instead of peace and negotiations," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP. "This shows that not only are they refusing to implement the roadmap but they are working to bury the roadmap completely." Yariv Oppenheimer, of Israel's anti-settlement organisation Peace Now, said it was proof that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government was flouting its commitments under the roadmap which targets the creation of a "viable" Palestinian state by 2005. "Even as Sharon continues to pay lip service to the adoption of the roadmap, on the ground the government continues to build in the territories and disregards all their commitments on the issue," Oppenheimer said. Since the beginning of the year, Israel has invited tenders for a total of 1,627 apartments in the settlements, Peace Now said. Erakat said the United States and the roadmap's other three international sponsors the European Union, Russia and the United Nations must persuade Israel to reverse the decision. The settlement activity and continuing violence on the ground has stalled any progress on the roadmap which was launched amid great fanfare in June. Attention has recently shifted to an alternative plan, known as the Geneva Initiative, despite Sharon's insistence that the roadmap is the only hope of finding peace. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Palestinian women walk in front of razor wire to demonstrate against the construction of the security fence close to the West Bank village of Jayous. (AFP/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)