JERUSALEM - The United States blamed both Israel and the Palestinians for an upsurge of violence that threatens to wreck a fragile US-brokered ceasefire aimed at ending nine months of bloodletting.
The 17-day-old ceasefire faced its most difficult test on Monday when a Palestinian and an Israeli were killed in separate incidents, two car bombs exploded near Tel Aviv and Israel killed three Islamic militants.
Following the rise in violence, which had subsided for more than a week after the sides agreed to a truce, Israel said it would reassess its policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Fifteen Palestinians and eight Israelis have been killed since the warring parties adopted the truce brokered by US CIA director George Tenet on June 13.
"We think the Palestinians have not done enough to fight terror and to end the violence. We also want to make clear that we remain opposed to Israel's policy of targeted killings," said US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
"Both sides need to exert maximum efforts to halt the violence and we will continue to urge them to do so," he said in Washington.
Israeli radio and television reported that Israeli and Palestinian security officials met yesterday to try to save the truce from collapse.
An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at a car in the West Bank on Monday, killing three Islamic militants Israel said were responsible for attacks against Israelis.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said the car bombings near Tel Aviv airport were in retaliation for the "assassinations."
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat lashed out at Israel, accusing it of violating the truce and committing an "ugly crime" by killing the three militants.
The Israeli Army reported more than half a dozen shooting incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip yesterday. It said one civilian was wounded in a West Bank shooting.
A Jewish settler spokesman said a settler had gone missing while out with his sheep.
Palestinian security officials said soldiers fired on a police post in Gaza, forcing it to be evacuated.
In a shooting near the Israel-West Bank border on Monday, Palestinian gunmen killed Aharon Abidya, 41, Israeli police said.
Later, Israeli troops shot dead Radwan Eshtaya, 37, at the entrance to the West Bank village of Salem, Palestinian security and hospital officials said. The Army was checking the report.
In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged both sides "to exercise maximum restraint so that a total collapse of the ceasefire can be prevented."
Following the latest wave of violence, Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters:
"The situation that is happening on the ground is a new situation that in my opinion requires us to reassess everything that is happening in the territories." He did not elaborate.
Jibril Rajoub, head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank, told Israeli radio: "As long as the situation doesn't change in the field and the closures continue, don't ask the Palestinian people or the Palestinian Authority to do anything, because we cannot do anything."
- REUTERS
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