GAZA, 7 February — Violence flared anew as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left for Washington yesterday to urge US President George W. Bush to sever ties with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Four people, including a 16-year-old boy, were killed in the fresh wave of violence.
Witnesses and hospital sources said an Israeli soldier shot Fadi Al-Azazi in the chest as he stood in a crowd watching army bulldozers working on the southern Gaza Strip border. The Israeli Army had no immediate comment on the death.
In the northeastern West Bank, a Palestinian infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Hamra, killed a settler and a sodier and wounded five people, the army and ambulance officials said. He was later killed.
The army also claimed it seized eight missiles hidden in a vegetable truck traveling to Palestinian cities near Israel, putting them in range of heavily populated Israeli areas.
Sharon’s meeting with Bush today will be his fourth in a year. Bush has not met Arafat in that time. "To our regret, Arafat has become irrelevant," Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said. "So we must find other Palestinians and Mr. Sharon has already started talks with other Palestinian leaders, like Abu Ala and Abu Mazen," he said, referring to a surprise meeting last week with two veteran Palestinian leaders.
The Jerusalem City Council demolished three Palestinian houses in Israeli-occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, in the second such operation this week in the disputed city, the council said. The houses were destroyed after being built without permission in the Beit Hanina neighborhood, the council said. Israeli police guarded the bulldozers as they destroyed the buildings and kept journalists at a distance.
