US President George W Bush said this evening he was 'very optimistic' about the chances for Middle East peace as Secretary of State Colin Powell left for a visit to the region.
In continuing incidents, an explosives-filled car driven by a Palestinian suicide bomber has exploded near an Israeli tank in the vicinity of a Gaza Strip Jewish settlement. Israeli Radio said the tank was undamaged.
And Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian civilian in a village near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Earlier, a member of Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, was killed when an Israeli helicopter gunship fired two missiles at a car in Gaza City.
The attacks came two days before the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, is due to arrive in the region to promote the peace plan for the Middle East.
In a separate development, Human Rights Watch has warned that the 'roadmap' for Middle East peace risks failure because it almost completely ignores basic human rights issues.
In a 14-page report entitled 'The roadmap: repeating Oslo's Human Rights mistakes', the group has warned that ignoring basic human rights and international humanitarian law had been the fatal flaw which has undermined all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
