GAZA CITY, 29 January 2004 — Eight Palestinians were shot dead on the outskirts of Gaza City yesterday, as two Israeli groups petitioned the Supreme Court against the planned release of Palestinian detainees under an exchange deal.

As Israel prepared to release more than 450 Arab detainees, mostly Palestinians, under terms of a German-brokered exchange deal with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, two groups filed a petition claiming the move would endanger security and threaten a new wave of violence.

And in the West Bank town of Ramallah, a top US envoy met for the first time with Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qorei in a bid to salvage the peace process.

The eight were shot dead in Al-Zeitun suburb of southern Gaza City where armored vehicles and bulldozers staged a rare incursion, according to Palestinian hospital sources and witnesses.

The Islamic Jihad organization said four of its fighters were among the “martyrs” and vowed revenge.

An army spokesman said the troops came under attack while conducting an operation to find cells of Palestinian fighters responsible for attacks on the nearby Jewish settlement of Netzarim.

The cells had carried out at least 24 separate shooting attacks and fired 133 mortar shells at Netzarim in the past two months, he added.

“The soldiers saw about five to 10 gunmen approaching them,” he said. “The force opened fire at them. A majority of them were hit.”

Ten other people were injured, including an ambulance man, medical sources said.

Hospital officials who examined the bodies said some appeared to have been shot in the head at close range.

Bakr Abu Saffiyeh, head of emergency services at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said that five had been shot with “a single bullet to the head or the nape of the neck.”

But an army source insisted the troops under attack had not left their armored vehicle throughout the exchanges of fire.

The killings brought immediate condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, with veteran leader Yasser Arafat’s chief adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina, saying, “The Israeli government must bear the responsibility for this massacre.”

Qorei, speaking to reporters after a meeting with US envoy John Wolf in the West Bank town of Ramallah, said the killings had been raised in their discussions.

“What has happened in Gaza is one of the crimes which Israel commits on a daily basis,” he said.

The violence cast a shadow over Qorei’s first-ever meeting with Wolf, the man tasked by US President George W. Bush with overseeing implementation of the troubled roadmap peace plan.

However, Qorei said he was optimistic the impasse in the peace process could be broken, adding he had asked the Americans to help line up a much-delayed meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

“The fact the United States has taken up its important role again of trying to bring both sides to their senses gives us reason to be optimistic,” he said.

It was Wolf’s first visit to the region since September. The intervening period has seen no progress in the road map, which was endorsed by all sides at a ceremony overseen by Bush in June.

“We came out here to reiterate President Bush’s commitment to his vision that he set out in June 2002... That vision is essential for us and we believe it is essential for the two parties,” Wolf told reporters.

The envoy held talks on Tuesday with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Sharon’s Chief of Staff Dov Weisglass.

The road map envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005 alongside a secure Israel. But the phased project obliges both sides to meet a series of commitments before any final status agreement can be discussed.

Top-level talks have been frozen since August, since when Israel has continued its Jewish settlement activity in the occupied territories, while Palestinian authorities have failed to crack down on militant groups.