NABLUS, West Bank, 28 March 2004 — A six-year-old Palestinian boy was killed yesterday by what the Israeli military said was haphazard Palestinian gunfire toward an Israeli Army jeep in a West Bank refugee camp.

The boy, Khaled Walwil, had been standing at the window of his home and just turned his back when he was shot and killed, his family said.

The latest violence comes amid deepening tensions in the aftermath of Israel’s assassination Monday of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Members of Yassin’s group are promising revenge and Israel’s military says it will continue to hit militant leaders. And people on both sides fear there could be a new wave of death in a violent conflict that has lasted more than three years.

Troops entered the Balata refugee camp, on the edge of this West Bank city, early yesterday to search for a fugitive suspected of being behind a number of attempts in recent weeks to smuggle explosives, said a local army commander, Col. Guy Hatzout.

Soldiers traded fire with Palestinians, but Hatzout ordered his troops to withdraw when they were unable to find the fugitive. Hatzout said he drove into the camp in his jeep to supervise the withdrawal of his troops.

The colonel said there hadn’t been any firing for about five minutes when suddenly a Palestinian gunman began shooting toward the jeep from an alley. Hatzout said the man fired from behind a corner, and therefore couldn’t see what he was shooting at.

“Ten seconds later, I hear screaming behind my jeep. I see an entire family shouting, and in the arms of a father I see a bleeding boy.”

The boy’s mother believes he was hit by Israeli soldiers firing at a group of youths hurling stones at their jeeps. The boy’s family lives in a second-floor apartment, and a bullet fired at street level might have ricocheted into the apartment window.

“He (the boy) was playing near the window,” the boy’s mother, Lina, said. “Suddenly, I heard shooting, and saw my boy drop from the sofa to the ground. I saw the (army) jeep from the window. The jeep was 10 meters from the house.”

The White House announced Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would meet US President George W. Bush in Washington on April 14 to discuss ways to renew peace talks.

The long-expected meeting is to be part of a series of upcoming talks between Bush and key Mideast leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdallah.

Next week, a trio of US emissaries is expected to make its third trip to the region to talk with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Israel’s proposed plan to pull soldiers and Jewish settlers out of the Gaza Strip.

In another development, Palestinian leaders were furious with the United States for vetoing a United Nations resolution that would have condemned Israel for killing Yassin, and said they saw the rejection as a green light for Israel to continue killing militants in air strikes that have also claimed the lives of innocent bystanders.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in the northern West Bank city of Jenin yesterday in memory of Sheikh Yassin.