Israeli army bulldozer crushes US woman

10.20am

GAZA - Israeli forces have killed an American woman and two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in a fresh blow to US hopes of calming Israeli-Palestinian violence ahead of a possible war with Iraq.

Twenty-three-year-old Rachel Corey was, according to a witness, lying on the ground in front of an Israeli army bulldozer demolishing a house in the southern Gaza city of Rafah when she was killed.

"The American girl was lying in front of the bulldozer when the bulldozer took sand and put it over her," Ali al-Shaar, a witness to the incident, told Reuters on Sunday.

The Israeli army called the incident a "regrettable accident", but said Corey and other protesters had been acting irresponsibly by "intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone". The army said it was investigating the incident.

A military official said there was limited visibility, especially on the ground immediately in front of the vehicle, from the windows of the armoured bulldozers used by the army.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian youth in Khan Younis and a 43-year-old Palestinian in Rafah, Palestinian sources said.

The army said it was checking both incidents. The latest spasm of bloodshed in the 29-month-old conflict came despite a stepped up initiative from the United States to unveil a long delayed peace "roadmap" intended to end the violence and establish the groundwork for a Palestinian state.

That initiative received a boost at an Iraq crisis summit in the Azores on Sunday in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar emphasised the need for an independent Palestinian state.

US President George W. Bush, hoping to win European and Arab support for any war with Iraq, said on Friday that Washington would release the peace plan once a new Palestinian prime minister with "real authority" to usher in reform and rein in militants takes office.

The Palestinian parliament was due to vote on Monday on a third and final reading of a bill to establish the post. The bill needs President Yasser Arafat's approval to be come law.

It was not yet clear whether the new Palestinian prime minister would have the power and standing to wield "real authority" as the United States has demanded.

But Blair said at a news conferences at the Azores that the candidate for the job, leading Palestinian moderate Mahmoud Abbas, who is widely known as Abu Mazen, would fit the bill.

"The appointment of Abu Mazen gives us the right partner to take this forward," Blair said, emphasising it was important to show there were no inconsistencies on international policy in the Middle East.

Abbas has not yet said whether he will accept the job.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told reporters on Sunday that a Palestinian prime minister might provide a new opportunity to renew peace talks which stalled shortly before a Palestinian uprising for statehood began in September 2000.

"I have no intention of missing this opportunity. But it all depends on security and on the people who will lead the Palestinian entity...If they will they have the authority, if they will act against terror (then) there is something to talk about and I want to talk about it," Sharon told reporters.

In Rafah, friends from Corey's international protest group called on the United States to "take all legal measures" against Israel for the American woman's death.

"The bulldozer put sand on her and kept crushing her," said Nicholas Dure, a fellow protester.

Doctors who examined Corey's body at Rafah's main hospital said she died from suffocation.

Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said Corey's death "reflects the kind of policies and atrocities committed by the Israeli army against Palestinians". Israeli forces regularly destroy buildings in Gaza's Rafah neighbourhood along the border with Egypt, which they say are used by Palestinian gunmen to fire on Israeli troops patrolling the border, or hide tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

A group of foreign volunteers have been operating in southern Gaza for months, trying to prevent the army from demolishing buildings, often by blocking bulldozers with their bodies.

At least 1,932 Palestinians and 726 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began.