Monday October 1, 2001

JERUSALEM - A Mideast truce remained shaky yesterday, with Israeli troops fatally shooting three Palestinians in the West Bank. The killings bring the Palestinian death toll to 18 since the two sides pledged last week to formalize a cease-fire.

No Israelis have been killed since the cease-fire promises were made Wednesday, but Israel said its troops have faced dozens of attacks in recent days as the Palestinians have marked the one-year anniversary of the current uprising with large street protests.

"Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority has never stopped violence," said Israeli Cabinet minister Tzipi Livni. Israel said the Palestinians had two days to

enforce its part of the cease-fire, or the latest truce was likely to fail as had earlier ones during the past year of fighting.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, said the mounting death toll on the Palestinian side

was the result of excessive force by Israeli troops. "We do not think that a cease-fire can be sustained under such circumstances, where Israeli soldiers are obviously given orders to shoot and kill at will," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said.

Amid the ongoing friction, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with senior Palestinian officials Ahmed Qureia and Saeb Erekat yesterday for talks on the cease-fire. Later, regional commanders met in several parts of the Palestinian territories to discuss security matters, the Israelis said.

Erekat said he told Peres that Israel is not implementing the truce plan, firing at Palestinians and tightening restrictions instead of easing them. He said Peres complained about Palestinian violence. Erekat responded that Israel "must help in calming down the situation. Continuing killing the Palestinians will not help restore calm."

Also, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo and later flew to Jordan to confer with King Abdullah II.

Under the Israeli-Palestinian agreement reached Wednesday, both sides were to take several steps by tomorrow to ease tensions - and there were some signs of action by both sides yesterday.

The Israelis partially lifted a military blockade around the West Bank town of Jericho, an area that has been mostly quiet. Israel also reopened the border crossing it controls between Egypt and the southern end of the Gaza Strip.

In an unusual episode yesterday, Palestinian police in Gaza fired tear gas at Palestinian teen-agers to prevent them from confronting Israeli troops at a border crossing. In the past year of fighting, Palestinian security forces have rarely intervened to keep youths from moving toward Israeli troops.

Still, the Palestinians were particularly upset about the shooting deaths of two Palestinian workers near the West Bank town of Tulkarem.

Palestinian taxi driver Asmi Asm said that in the pre-dawn hours

yesterday, he and other drivers were ferrying laborers to and from Tulkarem, near the border with Israel. The workers then intended to join the thousands of Palestinians who evade roadblocks and illegally slip into Israel each day to reach their jobs.

Asm said about halfway through the journey, near the village of Silat e-Dhar, the convoy came upon a pile of rocks blocking the road. When some of the passengers began dismantling the barrier, Israeli troops concealed in a nearby olive grove opened fire, killing two people and wounding six, he said.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it had set up the roadblock because of a Palestinian shooting attack nearby about 20 minutes earlier. The two taxis approached the roadblock at high speeds before stopping.

The drivers and passengers refused orders to get out of the taxis. The taxis then "began driving wildly in reverse," retreating from the soldiers and the roadblock, the statement said. The soldiers fired at the tires of the cars. When passengers got out and tried to run away, "some of them were hit by the soldiers' fire," the army statement added.

The statement made no mention of the soldiers coming under fire or finding any

weapons at the scene.

A third Palestinian was killed in the West Bank city of Hebron, where Israeli soldiers shot dead a plainclothes intelligence officer as he patrolled on foot, Palestinian security sources said. The Israeli army said it was checking the report.

During the officer's funeral procession in Hebron, two young men carried posters showing Osama bin Laden, named by the United States as the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington. Under bin Laden's picture was an Arab expression that means roughly, "He is the force to be reckoned with."