MIDDLE EAST: Gunmen from a faction loyal to the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat killed an Israeli man and injured his pregnant wife as they drove in the West Bank yesterday afternoon, prompting a renewed plea from the Israeli government to the Palestinian Authority to disarm and arrest extremists.
But speculation is growing that the current PA cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, may be ousted in a no-confidence vote in the Palestinian parliament as early as Monday.
Israel, meanwhile, is vowing to maintain its much-intensified policy of killing members of what it calls the Hamas "hard core". Eight Hamas men have been killed in Israeli missile strikes in the Gaza Strip in barely a week, with the latest, Hamdi Kalkha, hit in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis on Thursday night when en route to firing Qassam rockets at a nearby Jewish settlement, the Israeli army said.
Yesterday, Israeli army tanks and bulldozers again crossed into northern Gaza, to clear trees and other potential means of cover from the Beit Hanoun area favoured by the Hamas rocket-launching squads, who on Thursday fired a Qassam at the southern coastal town of Ashkelon.
Israeli troops are massed on the Gaza border, poised for a much greater incursion.
The Israeli man shot dead in the West Bank was named as Mr Shalom Hamelech, a resident of the settlement of Homesh. His wife, Limor, seven months pregnant, was injured and taken to hospital, where a healthy baby was delivered. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, affiliated with Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO, claimed responsibility.
Mr Arafat urged all Palestinian factions earlier in the week to reinstate their lapsed Intifada ceasefire - a call which appears to have fallen on deaf ears, and which Israel claims was disingenuous, since it alleges that Mr Arafat encourages terrorism. Unlike Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Brigades did not agree to the original ceasefire.