JERUSALEM, (Islamweb & Agencies) -A Palestinian was killed in an Israeli shelling attack on the Palestinian Authority offices Friday in the West Bank, where earlier an angry crowd of some 10,000 buried three Palestinians killed the day before by settlers. (Read photo caption below).
The man was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli shell, while a number of others were wounded during a day of tension in the predominantly Palestinian town of Hebron, Al-Khalil following the deaths of three Palestinians a day earlier.
That attack -- claimed by extremist Jewish settlers -- had already been widely condemned in the region by the Palestinian Authority. International condemnation Friday included that from the EU and Russia.
Meanwhile, a top Palestinian security official on Friday blamed the murder of the three Palestinians on Israel and described the settlements as a "cancer" that must be eliminated.
Jibril Rajoub, head of preventative security in the West Bank, told reporters that the murders must have been carried out with the green light of Israeli authorities.
And while Israeli troops shelled the Palestinian Authority offices in Hebron, extremist Israeli settlers targeted Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in a hate campaign calling for his murder.
In this week's edition of "Makor Richon", an ad calls for Israeli soldiers or security agents to kill Arafat.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government, under international pressure, was still giving mixed signals over the tiniest opportunity for international monitors to be brought to the region.
War Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said Israel might agree to US Central Intelligence Agency personnel but no one else.
But no sooner had he made that comment on public radio, than a hastily prepared statement insisted he still rejected "the presence of another international force."
The United States was among the Group of Eight (G8) most industrialized nations which have agreed to the idea of foreign monitors for the conflict.
But later Friday in Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States was undecided whether it would place observers in any foreign monitoring force sent to the Palestinian territories.
Foreign ministers from the G8, meeting in Rome ahead of a summit in Genoa of most industrialized countries, agreed Thursday to back in principle monitors to help further the implementation of the Mitchell report.
The Palestinians have hailed the proposal, which has been the subject of a long-standing appeal to the international community, but in the absence of any progress on that, the situation continues to degenerate as fears grow of worse to come.
Marwan Barghouti, head of Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank, said of the settlers' attack: "This will lead to a widespread response by the Palestinians. I'm afraid if they're not stopped, we are on the verge of a bloodbath."
Israeli settlers live on land held by Israeli since 1967 -- illegally occupied under international law -- and their presence in the heart of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is one of the main Palestinian grievances.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Slain 3-month-old Palestinian infant Diya Tmaizi is carried to his grave by Palestinian mourners in the southern West Bank village of Idna, west of Hebron, Friday July 20, 2001. Three Palestinians, including the infant, were shot and killed and at least four other were injured late Thursday near Idna. According to Israel radio, a Jewish extremist group called the "Road Safety Group" took responsibility. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
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