Exploding phone kills Palestinian militant

A leading Palestinian militant has been killed after the public phone he regularly used exploded.

Iyad Hardan, 30, of the radical Islamic Jihad movement, was talking on the pay phone outside the Palestinian jail where he was being held in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

No group has claimed responsibility but Israel has accused Hardan of masterminding bomb attacks against Israel.

Hardan was released from the Palestinian jail in November after the Palestinian uprising began. Israel says he was behind a December bombing in northern Israel, which killed two Israelis and injured 60.

He was subsequently rearrested by the Palestinians but has been allowed to come and go from the jail. He was permitted to use the telephone on the street outside the jail and regularly did so.

Israel has also accused Hardan of organising a 1998 car bombing in a Jerusalem market that killed the two Palestinian assailants and injured 21 Israelis.

A 15-year-old Palestinian, Ahmed Attar, has been shot dead by Israeli troops in the central Gaza Strip. Nine Palestinians were also injured.

The violence followed a day of Israeli-Palestinian talks that failed to produce any breakthroughs toward ending the six months of fighting.