By
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM - A leading Palestinian militant was blown up yesterday when a booby-trapped public phone exploded as he used it on the street outside the West Bank jail where he was held on-and-off by Palestinian authorities.
Palestinians immediately blamed Israel for the killing, which came a day after the sides held heated and inconclusive talks on ending more than six months of Mideast violence.
Israelis and Palestinians also traded angry accusations over an incident in which Israeli soldiers fired on a four-car convoy carrying Palestinian security chiefs as they returned to Gaza at 2 a.m. yesterday after the talks inside Israel.
The Palestinians charged that Israel was trying to kill the officials. Israel insisted that the Palestinians opened fire first, prompting return fire from the Israeli soldiers.
The shooting and recriminations reflected the hardening attitudes on both sides of the conflict, which has been marked by Palestinian suicide bombings, Israeli airstrikes, and gunbattles in recent weeks.
In the West Bank town of Jenin, Iyad Hardan, 30, a leading militant in the radical Islamic Jihad movement, was killed instantly when an explosive device detonated as he spoke on a pay phone he often used just outside the Palestinian jail, witnesses said.
Israel did not immediately comment on the blast, but it has named Hardan one of the most dangerous members of Islamic Jihad, and accused him of masterminding major bomb attacks against Israel.
Hardan escaped from a Palestinian jail in October, in the first days of the Palestinian uprising. After a manhunt, he was re-arrested by the Palestinians, only to be released in November. Israel says he then orchestrated a December bombing in northern Israel that killed two Israelis and injured 60.
Hardan was arrested again by the Palestinians, but has been allowed to come and go from the jail. He went to a university in Jenin yesterday morning where he was studying history, and was returning to the jail in the afternoon.
But before he entered, he made a call from his regular phone, just a few paces from the entrance to the facility, which also houses offices of the Palestinian Authority.
"We knew he was a target for the Israelis," said Abedil Izzedine, Hardan's cellmate at the prison. But Hardan believed the phone was safe because Palestinian security guards stood watch nearby.
Thousands of angry Palestinians converged on the Jenin hospital where Hardan's body was taken, holding a spontaneous demonstration and chanting, "God is great." Palestinian gunmen fired their weapons into the air.
In other violence yesterday, a 15-year-old Palestinian was shot dead and nine Palestinians were wounded in a stone-throwing clash with Israeli troops in the central Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses and doctors said.
Six months of violence have left 460 people dead, including 377 Palestinians, 64 Israeli Jews and 19 others. During that time, Israel has carried out more than a dozen targeted killings of Palestinians accused of involvement of attacks on Israelis.
The controversial attacks were part of the talks between Israelis and Palestinians Wednesday night, held outside Tel Aviv at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk.
After the talks ended without agreement, the Palestinian delegation was driven south to the Israel-Gaza crossing in U.S. Embassy vehicles.
The Palestinians had just switched to their own vehicles at the crossing when shots rang out. Both sides claim the other shot first.
All four Palestinian vehicles were hit by bullets, and one bodyguard was shot in the leg. As the Palestinian cars sped away, one overturned and two bodyguards suffered broken limbs.
The Israelis said their sandbagged positions were hit with Palestinian gunfire, and called for a joint investigation. The Palestinians denied shooting, and rejected the offer for a joint inquiry.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, whose silver Mercedes was hit by seven bullets, described the Wednesday night meeting with the Israelis as "argumentative."
Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the talks "may be a dead end, but I don't know. We'll have to see."
Gissin said Sharon had sent his son, Omri Sharon, to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Sunday in the West Bank town of Ramallah. He said the two discussed the prospect of reviving security cooperation but gave no further details.
Israel also announced yesterday that it would auction off land for 700 new houses in two Jewish settlements in the West Bank - Maaleh Adumim east of Jerusalem and Alfei Menache, outside the Palestinian city of Qilqilya.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas denounced the planned expansion as "clear evidence that Israel is not interested in calming the situation."
Sharon has said he would not build new settlements in the occupied territories, but would expand existing ones. The Palestinians say settlements carve up the land they want as part of a future state and demand they be dismantled for any final peace deal.
