Israeli bulldozers kill teenager and crush refugee homes

Israeli bulldozers moved into Palestinian-controlled territory early today at the Rafah refugee camp near the border with Egypt, killing a teenager and destroying at least 10 buildings, Palestinian officials and an eyewitness said.

Brigadier General Abdel Razek el-Majaida, a Palestinian security commander, said Israeli tanks were firing shells and machine guns to cover the operation.

Hospital doctors said Mahmoud Aqel, 17, was killed and at least 15 Palestinians were wounded.

Majaida called the Israeli move a ‘‘dangerous escalation’’. An eyewitness, agricultural engineer Ahmed Shaer, 39, said the bulldozers levelled farmland and greenhouses, and Palestinians were firing anti-tank rockets at the Israelis.

The Israeli military was checking the report. The spokesman’s office knew of no Israeli incursion, but said armed clashes had been going on there all day.

Israeli forces moved into the same area briefly yesterday, when a Palestinian policeman was killed in a clash.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres begins talks in Washington today in search of an elusive ceasefire deal to end months of fighting that is taking an ever-increasing toll of Palestinians and Israelis.

Another round of funerals took place yesterday. Palestinians buried five people from a pair of bomb blasts, including two young children. Israelis buried a Jewish settler. Like his father before him, he was killed in a West Bank ambush.

Peres said that US involvement is imperative to stopping the violence a message he said he will pass on first to US Secretary of State Colin Powell and then to US President George W. Bush.

Speaking in Jordan, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also said he hoped to reach a truce with Israel, although he did not mention the terms of a deal. Both sides blame each other for the violence.

‘‘We wish there would (be) an agreement,’’ Arafat said after meeting with King Abdullah II. Jordan and Egypt co-authored a truce plan that is under discussion.

The proposal calls for a month-long truce which would be followed by a resumption of peace negotiations. However, Israel wants a ceasefire to last two or three months before restarting negotiations.

The most recent spasm of violence, however, further dimmed hopes for a breakthrough.

On the Israeli side, Jewish settler Assaf Hershkovitz, 31, was killed when his van was hit by 27 bullets and overturned on a stretch of West Bank road that Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly targeted outside Ramallah.

Hershkovitz’s father Arieh was killed in an almost identical shooting along the same road in January, just three miles from where his son died.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for the Palestinians killed in the two bomb blasts on Monday night.

In other violence yesterday, a suspected informer with Israel was ambushed by a masked assailant in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, several thousand Palestinians marched through the streets to mourn the deaths of a Palestinian activist and two children killed when a two-storey apartment building was levelled Monday night. The powerful blast was several hundred yards from Arafat’s West Bank headquarters.

Four-year-old Malak Barakat and her seven-year-old brother Shahid died along with Hassan al Qady, a leading member in Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Palestinians said Monday’s bomb blast was part of an Israeli campaign of targeting militants. Palestinians say at least 15 have been killed in special operations by the Israelis since the unrest began on September 18.

Israel named al Qady as a leading suspect in the killing a 16-year-old Israeli earlier this year. The teenager, Ofir Nahum, lured to Ramallah by a Palestinian woman in an exchange of e-mail messages, was dragged out of a car and killed by gunmen.

Israel said the explosions were set off accidentally by Palestinian militants preparing bombs intended for Israel.

Asked if Israel was involved, Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer replied: ‘‘We have nothing to do with it. This is exactly how they prepare their bombs, and then they blow themselves up. There is no limit to their audacity.’’

In Gaza City, hundreds of Hamas supporters marched in a funeral for two members of the extremist group killed on Monday when a bomb exploded in a van. Palestinian officials said the cause of the blast was still under investigation.

Since the fighting began, 431 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 72 on the Israeli side.