The Palestinian President has called on the US and Russia, as well as the participants in last month's Sharm el-Sheikh agreement in Egypt, to hold an urgent meeting aimed at saving the peace process. Yasser Arafat was speaking after meeting the Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, in Gaza City. The chief participants in the Sharm el-Sheikh summit were Mr Arafat, the Israeli Prime Minister and President Clinton.
Egypt, Jordan and the United Nations were also represented by their leaders. However, the Sharm accord has so far failed to stop the violence, which has claimed up to 230 lives over the past seven weeks, most of them Palestinians. Earlier, Ehud Barak said that Mr Arafat had turned his back on negotiating a peace agreement in favour of violence.
A German doctor was been killed in overnight attacks near Bethlehem by the Israeli military. The doctor, Harry Fischer, is believed to be the first foreign victim of the recent violence between the Israelis and Palestinians. Witnesses said that Mr Fischer was hit by a shell or a rocket as he was leaving his house to help his neighbours whose house had caught fire in the bombardment.
A Palestinian boy has died from wounds he sustained in a previous clash with the Israeli military. Israeli military helicopters carried out missile attacks against Palestinian positions in the West Bank. An Israeli official said that three buildings belonging to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement had been hit including its headquarters in Hebron. Witnesses said that the buildings were empty at the time.
After a late night meeting the Israeli cabinet said that there would be no change to, what it described as, its current policy of restraint. The latest attacks followed a day of continued violence yesterday in which at least eight people died. The American Middle East peace envoy, Dennis Ross, is due to meet Mr Arafat in Gaza this morning.
Yesterday, the UN Human Rights Commissioner condemned what she called the excessive use of force by Israel against the Palestinians. Mary Robinson's comments came on one of the bloodiest days since the recent violence broke out, with eight Palestinians shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a separate development, the Lebanese Shiite Hizbollah has said it carried out a bomb attack against an Israeli army patrol in a disputed area on the Lebanese-Syrian borders occupied by Israel. Israel Radio and Israeli security sources confirmed the attack but said no one was hurt.
