Israeli Troops Kill 2 Palestinians
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) -- Israeli soldiers enforcing a curfew in Nablus killed two Palestinians and seriously wounded two Friday, the second day of a large-scale search for fugitives and bomb labs in the West Bank city.
In one incident, members of a Palestinian family were hit by army fire on their balcony, killing a 19-year-old man and seriously wounding his father and brother with shots to the head and face, witnesses and medics said.
The military said soldiers opened fire after spotting suspicious figures crawling on the roof of a building.
Soldiers also opened fire on an 18-year-old on a rooftop after spotting him holding a gas canister over his head. The army said soldiers feared he was about to drop the canister on them.
Hundreds of Israeli troops entered Nablus' old city, or Casbah, on Thursday, and began searching homes and shops. They commandeered 16 buildings in the Casbah, home to about 20,000 residents and a stronghold of militants. Families in the buildings were confined to one room per apartment.
Soldiers forced open doors with grenades and sledge hammers. Palestinian medics said that in all, 12 Palestinians were wounded by live fire.
The military said the Nablus operation, the largest in over a year, would last several days. The raid was triggered in part by the arrest earlier in the week of an 18-year-old resident recruited by Al Aqsa to blow himself up in Jerusalem. The youth was caught at an Israeli checkpoint, and soldiers found explosives hidden in a school bag.
On Thursday, soldiers handed out leaflets explaining that they were looking for seven men, most from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with ties to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. "Help us catch them because they are the ones who are causing damage to Nablus," it said.
In their search, troops discovered an explosives belt weighing 44 pounds in an apartment and a roadside bomb at a junction, the army said.
Also Friday, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told U.S. envoy William Burns that he is skeptical about Egyptian assurances that the Palestinians are committed to security reform.
The meeting came two days after Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman held separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the terms of Israel's Gaza withdrawal, to be completed by the end of 2005. Israel refuses to talk directly to the Palestinians, and Egypt has stepped in as mediator.
Egypt has given Arafat until September to reform his security services by merging many of the branches and replacing some of the commanders. The Palestinian leader also is expected to relinquish some of his powers.
Arafat told Suleiman he was ready to carry out reforms, but there have been no signs of changes on the ground. Arafat has fiercely resisted security reforms in the past, fearing they would undercut his authority.
In meetings with Mofaz and Israel's foreign minister, Suleiman reportedly said he is optimistic the Palestinians would fulfill their obligations. "Don't be so pessimistic," the Yediot Ahronot daily quoted Suleiman as telling Mofaz.
However, Mofaz said Friday he remains skeptical.
"I have considerable doubt that they (the Palestinians) will really do everything that is required of them - true reform, the merging of the security branches, replacing security chiefs, dismantling the terror infrastructure," Mofaz told Burns.
Under the Egyptian plan, Palestinian militant groups would gather in Cairo in September for a cease-fire declaration. Within eight months, Palestinian security forces would begin collecting illegal weapons.
Mofaz said Israel welcomes Egypt's involvement, "but the test is in the results."
On Thursday, Mideast envoys from the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia - the so-called Quartet of Mideast mediators - met in Cairo to discuss the Gaza withdrawal and how to tie into the "road map" peace plan. The plan, backed by the Quartet, envisions a Palestinian state by 2005.
Burns, who participated in the Cairo talks, said Friday the Gaza withdrawal "is a step, hopefully, toward the implementation of the road map."
In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops demolished the apartment of a senior militant of the Islamic Jihad group, the army said. Ahmed Abu Akher was involved in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem last year and shooting attacks on an outlying neighborhood of the city, a spokesman said.
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A 3,000 strong detachment of the Israeli Defense Forces has moved back into the Gaza Strip only months after withdrawal of settlements from the area. Eight Hamas cabinet ministers, in addition to other officials, have been detained in a coordinated action codenamed Operation Summer Rains. The pre-planned operation was launched in immediate response to what Israel said was the kidnap of 19-year-old Israeli tank gunner Cpl. Gilad Shalit on 25 June.
Map of the Gaza Strip.
Three bridges in the Gaza Strip have been bombed for the stated purpose of restricting the movement of the hostage takers and the hostage. 

In other operations a helicopter attack on a power station in Gaza plunged large portions of the Gaza Strip into darkness, leaving somewhere around 700,000 civilians without electricity or water. While Israeli troops and armored vehicles, lead by bulldozers, also moved into Gaza near a disused international airport. 

There were also reports of Israeli warplanes making warning flights over Syria in what has been reported to be a warning "against supporting Palestinian militants."

"Fight your enemies, who came to their deaths. Grab your rifles and resist," said Nizar Rayan in a radio message to Palestinian militants. Despite this exhortation, there were no immediate reports of casualties or conflicts.

"We have no desire to remain in the Gaza Strip," said Israeli National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, on  Israel Radio, although he did not give a timetable for the operation. "We want to bring our boy home, that's all."

The Popular Resistance Committees threatened to kill an Israeli soldier, kidnapped in the West Bank. The body of an 18-year-old Israeli settler, Eliyahu Yitzhak Asheri, kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank, was found in the A-Tira neighbourhood of Ramallah today; he was killed by Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees on Sunday. 

Israel has also detained dozens of Hamas MPs and ministers in a what Israel claims is an unrelated operation. An Israeli official denied the capture as a use for bargaining with the kidnappers saying, "They are not bargaining chips for the return of the soldier - it was simply an operation against a terrorist organisation."