RAMALLAH, West Bank, 4 November— Israel yesterday signaled its intention to maintain its partial reoccupation of parts of the West Bank as it blockaded new areas where an Israeli soldier was killed a day earlier. The army bulldozers also destroyed at least one house in the Gaza Strip which they alleged Palestinian gunmen have been using to launch attacks.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, meanwhile, met for the second time in 24 hours on the Spanish island of Majorca, although there were no signs they would be able to revive a collapsed cease-fire.
Israeli troops shot dead yesterday a Palestinian public security major and wounded three other persons east of the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the central Gaza Strip, media and security sources reported. The sources said that Maj. Salah El Ghazali, 45, was killed when Israeli troops stationed at the settlement fired at a Palestinian public security post .
Palestinian eyewitnesses said the gunfire caused serious damage to a gas station and several Palestinian homes in the area. The eyewitnesses that the area was quite and that no shots were fired from the Palestinian side at either the Jewish settlement or the Israeli soldiers.
Military bulldozers responded yesterday morning by tearing up a road, while tanks completely blocked the northern access routes to a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, according to an AFP correspondent. Israeli soldiers are also blocking the entrances to several buildings in northern Ramallah, residents told AFP.
Directly after the shooting, an Israeli tank and about a dozen armored vehicles had mounted a brief incursion into the nearby Palestinian village of Silwad where a young man was detained, Palestinian witnesses said. The self-rule Palestinian zone of Ramallah-El Bireh is one of the six areas of the West Bank invaded by tanks and troops in a hunt for militants.
Also in the occupied territories, Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered dozens of meters into self-rule territory in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, and completely destroyed two homes, Palestinian security sources said. In Khan Yunis, just north of Rafah, two houses suffered serious fire damage after being hit by army illumination grenades, Palestinians said.
A senior aide Arafat yesterday condemned remarks by a US official equating the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation with "terror" as misleading and biased.
