Palestinians today mark the 53rd anniversary of the Nakba (the "catastrophe" of the founding of Israel) following the killing of at least seven Palestinians yesterday and amid ominous signs of an escalation of the current conflict.
Israeli troops early yesterday shot dead five Palestinian policemen at a police station inside Palestinian territory, near Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority has filed a complaint to the UN Security Council.
The Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, who noted that the men were liaison personnel involved in regular contact with the Israeli army, charged that four of them had been killed in their sleep, and termed their deaths "dirty and immoral".
Other Palestinian officials spoke of one or two of the men being shot through the walls of the station, and the others dying in subsequent exchanges of fire. Israeli military officials said their troops had opened fire on "suspicious figures", while an aide to the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, claimed that the troops had been fired upon from the police station.
In Gaza yesterday, Israeli troops shot dead a man who they said shot and threw a handgrenade at them; Palestinian officials said a second man was also killed. Also yesterday, Israel shelled 10 Palestinian security installations in Gaza, destroying at least eight armoured personnel carriers, and blew up a West Bank police station from which it said its troops had come under fire.
In Gilo, on the southern edge of Jerusalem, four Israelis were injured by gunfire fired from Beit Jallah, inside Palestinian territory; five people were hurt in the counter-fire. And near Petah Tikva, in central Israel, sappers detonated a bomb placed at a bus-stop.
Meanwhile, Israel charged seven of its own policemen with beating up Palestinian suspects, who had been arrested for alleged participation in the murders of two Israeli reservists.