Israeli troops kill Palestinian fugitive

Israeli troops shot dead an unarmed Palestinian fugitive in the West Bank today after they caught him hiding on a rooftop.

The soldiers surrounded Imad Mabruk’s home in the al-Ain refugee camp and demanded he surrender, residents said. Mabruk was a senior militant in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The violence erupted hours before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was to begin his first round of talks to build a stable government from several parliamentary factions with conflicting demands and interests.

Sharon, who crushed his rivals in a January 28 general election, wants to include the left-of-centre Labour Party in his coalition.

But it is unlikely the party’s dovish leader, Amram Mitzna, will go back on a campaign pledge to stay out of a Likud-led government.

Sharon has offered the Palestinians a phased ceasefire in which Israeli troops would withdraw from reoccupied Palestinian towns and cities that came under Palestinian security control.

But Palestinians want an Israeli pledge to stop targeted killings of militants. Without such an offer it seemed unlikely a truce will take hold.

The latest killing comes days after Sharon met Ahmed Qureia, a senior Palestinian negotiator, in an attempt to reach a truce.

The talks, the first high level contacts in about a year, were seen by some as a political nod to the Labour Party and to the US, which wants quiet on the Israeli-Palestinian front while they focus on Iraq.

The Labour Party is demanding an immediate renewal of stalled peace talks and an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, including the dismantling of settlements, as conditions for joining a Sharon-led government.

Sharon has rejected these demands. His aides denied the talks with the Palestinians were a political ploy, saying they were just the continuation of normal discussions.

If the Labour Party digs its heels in, Sharon will have to rely on right-wing, ultra-Orthodox and anti-religious parties to piece together a majority, which could stall any hopes for peace.

That could also threaten the close relationship with the Americans that Sharon has carefully built during his time in power.