Peace road map stalls as Sharon and Abbas postpone summit meeting
The shootings which the Israeli army said came in response to attacks by Palestinians throwing stones and molotov cocktails took place a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that Israel's occupation in the West Bank must end, stunning both peace orientated opponents and hardline allies.
Mr Sharon's remarks and Israel's conditional acceptance on Sunday of the so-called "road map" to peace were expected to jump-start stalled Mideast peace negotiations.
It was not immediately clear whether the delay in the planned summit between Mr Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, was caused by a substantive problem or merely a scheduling conflict.
Mr Sharon and Mr Abbas had been scheduled to hold talks today , their second meeting in two weeks.
Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed each other for the delay and said no new date had been set.
Israel Radio said the meeting would take place tomorrow. A three-way summit with US President George W Bush could take place as early as next week.
Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 16-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded a seven-year-old boy after opening fire at stone throwers in the Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank yesterday, Palestinian hospital officials said.
The army said troops fired, and hit a boy, after a Palestinian youth threw a molotov cocktail.
In a village near the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday, Israeli troops opened fire on youths throwing stones, hitting a nine-year-old Palestinian boy in the head and critically wounding him, and hitting two 12-year-old boys in the legs, lightly wounding them, Palestinian hospital officials said.
A 10-year-old boy was struck in the leg by a rubber bullet, but was not seriously hurt, the officials said.
Military sources said troops were trying to break up stone-throwing protests, but did not use live fire. The army was not aware of any injuries.
Five Palestinian children, a Palestinian woman and a police officer, were injured yesterday after accidentally detonating explosives in the West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian security officials said.
The children found the explosives in two plastic bags under a tree and accidentally detonated the first bag. After a police officer arrived, the second bag exploded, seriously injuring him, the officials said.
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager on Monday and another surrendered after infiltrating from Gaza, the military said.
They were unarmed and apparently looking for work. In a village near the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed during an exchange of gunfire.
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