Palestinians shell jewish settlement in Gaza

Palestinians fired a mortar shell at an Israeli settlement in Gaza early today, the third in a day, but there were also the first buds of truce efforts based on the report of an international commission.

A mortar shell exploded among the greenhouses at the Jewish settlement of Gadid in the southern Gaza Strip after daybreak.

Earlier, a shell landed near Nir Am, an Israeli village just outside Gaza, and another exploded in the yard of a house in the Jewish settlement of Netzer Hazani in the Gaza Strip. No one was hurt.

In a message to the media, the militant Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the first two mortar attacks.

Israeli tanks entered Palestinian territory, firing shells and machine guns,

Palestinian security officials said.

The officials, requesting anonymity, said the Israeli forces progressed about 900 yards, remained about 15 minutes and withdrew.

The Israeli military said its forces entered the territory to prevent mortars from being fired at Israeli civilians.

Israeli tanks, usually accompanying bulldozers, have entered Palestinian territory dozens of times in recent weeks to destroy structures and level farmland.

The Israelis said the operations are necessary to remove cover used by Palestinian gunmen. The incursions have drawn stiff international criticism.

Meanwhile, Palestinians and Israelis began diplomatic manoeuvring around the report of the Mitchell Commission, headed by ex-US Senator George Mitchell, appointed to study more than seven months of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and recommend ways to end it.

The Palestinians sent a letter to members of the US Congress, urging them to back the report’s recommendations, emphasizing that it does not charge that Palestinian officials planned the violence and calls on Israel to take a series of steps to relieve economic pressure on the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel was wrestling with a commission recommendation to halt all construction in Jewish settlements. Israel has said it will not build new settlements, but maintained that some construction is necessary to accommodate natural growth.

In its edition published today, Makor Rishon, a weekly newspaper sympathetic to the settlers, said that Israeli leaders have decided to allow new construction only inside the current settlement building lines. The paper said that amounted to a total freeze.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, did not deny the report.

He said there would be no building outside the current lines of the settlements, even though some have master plans covering territory far beyond the lines.

‘‘There will be no building on the nearby hill,’’ he said.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israel television yesterday that Israel would not confiscate additional land for settlement construction. ‘‘We have no territorial appetite around the settlements,’’ he said.

Dovish critics of the government’s policy say there are thousands of vacant apartments in the settlements, and no new construction is necessary.

A senior Red Cross official stepped into the fray yesterday, referring to the presence of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. ‘‘In principle it is a war crime,’’ Rene Kosirnik said.

Kosirnik, head of the Red Cross delegation to Israel and the Palestinian territories, told a news conference in Jerusalem that settling occupied territory is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, aimed at protecting civilians in conflicts.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari termed Kosirik’s remarks ‘‘inappropriate.’’ She said: ‘‘By taking a public position on these issues, the (Red Cross) compromises its ability to effectively work with the sides to serve its humanitarian mission.’’

Israel maintains that the West Bank and Gaza, where the Palestinians want to establish a state, are disputed and not occupied territory, and therefore the Geneva Convention does not apply. Most world governments disagree with the Israeli interpretation.

Relations between Israel and the Red Cross have been strained over Red Cross charges that Israel is violating Palestinian human rights and Israeli complaints that the organisation has failed to establish contact with three Israeli soldiers and a civilian abducted to Lebanon.