ME truce under fire as 3 Palestinians killed

Mraweh Khaled Kamil, a chief of Islamic Jihad's armed wing in the Jenin area of the northern West Bank, died under a hail of gunfire as he hunkered down in a house in the town of Qabatiya with other wanted militants, witnesses said.

Israeli troops surrounded the house before both sides unleashed volleys of bullets and an army bulldozer ground the building to a pulp, witnesses and military sources said.

Nasser Zakarneh, a 23-year-old civilian caught up in the clashes was also killed and nine other Palestinians injured, one of them seriously, Palestinian sources said.

The Israeli military counted one soldier wounded, two armed Palestinian gunmen as "hit" and said four militants surrendered.

Just hours earlier another Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli soldiers on the border between the occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt, sources on both sides said.

An Israeli patrol opened fire on a "suspect" who jumped over the border fence and ran towards the Palestinian sector of Rafah, a military source said.

Tuesday's deaths raised to 4,765 the number of people killed during the more than four-year Palestinian uprising and flung into further jeopardy an informal truce in place since late January and cemented at a peace summit in February.

"The truce is in peril and this killing will not go unpunished. Our patience is running out," said Khader Adnan, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad after Kamil was pronounced dead in Qabatiya.

Egyptian mediators last month rushed to the occupied territories to bolster the ceasefire after militants launched a string of rocket attacks in the Gaza Strip prompting two retaliatory Israeli air raids in as many weeks.

Israel has repeatedly accused Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas of failing to clamp down on militants, make arrests or prevent anti-Israeli attacks, although Egypt has warned Israel off making "unrealistic and impractical" demands.

In Gaza, the armed wing of Islamist group Hamas on Tuesday claimed another rocket attack on southern Israel, which damaged one house.

It said the strike was to avenge police storming Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, on Monday to disperse Palestinians throwing stones at an Israeli group visiting the complex, also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Palestinians accused Israeli police of provoking the clashes by allowing extremist Jews to visit the compound.

Against the backdrop of unrest, James Wolfensohn, international special envoy for Israel's imminent withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, was to begin a round of talks with top officials in the countdown to the historic pullout.