Two Palestinian militants shot dead by Israelis

ISRAELI forces killed two Palestinian militants yesterday, including one wanted for plotting a suicide bombing, as they were returning to their hiding place in a West Bank cave.

The killings came against the backdrop of the first high-level Israeli-Palestinian security talks in months to discuss ways to end 22 months of violence in which more than 2,000 people have been killed.

Israel had been searching for one of the militants, Ali Adjuri, for several weeks.

It believes he masterminded a suicide bombing in a foreign workers district of Tel Aviv on July 17 that killed five people, including a Romanian and two Chinese workers.

Residents of the nearby Jaba’a village said they saw a helicopter swoop through the air and later heard gunfire on a hill near the northern West Bank village. The bodies of the two militants were found early yesterday.

“There was a routine arrest operation in Jaba’a village.

“Two suspects escaped. A chase ensued and the two were killed,” an army spokeswoman said, without giving details on how the men were shot.

Both belonged to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group with links to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, Palestinian sources said. In Jerusalem, police arrested a 17-year-old Palestinian and said she had intended to carry out a suicide bombing.

Police said they found an explosives belt she planned to use in a field outside the city.

At security talks late on Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya, intelligence chief Amin al-Hindi and Mohammed Dahlan, a security adviser to Mr Arafat.

Despite the meeting, Israel launched a helicopter missile attack against a metal foundry it said produced weapons in the Gaza Strip, setting the workshop ablaze and wounding two people. During the discussions, Mr Ben-Eliezer offered to ease some restrictions on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in a trial gesture to restore security co-operation and ease hardships on Palestinians, his office said.

“Under the (proposal), Palestinian security forces will act to reduce terror and following this, the Israeli security forces will take steps that will ease security conditions,” it said.

The Palestinians swiftly rejected the “Gaza First” plan as a “public relations game,” indicating there had been no major breakthrough at the talks late on Monday.

Israeli forces have occupied seven Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank since Palestinian militants carried out two suicide bombings in rapid succession in Jerusalem in mid-June.

Violence surged at the weekend, with Palestinian militants killing nine people in a suicide bombing on a bus in northern Israel on Sunday.

Four other Israelis died in attacks in the following few hours.

Eight Palestinians have died in the latest violence, including the bus bomber, a gunman who opened fire on Israelis in East Jerusalem, a suspected militant who Israel said was killed by his own bomb and the two men killed yesterday.

Israel has responded to the militant attacks by declaring a travel ban on Palestinians in much of the West Bank and blocking the southern Gaza city of Rafah with tanks.