OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 27 November — Hopes ran low for top US peace envoys who landed in Israel yesterday with a mission to stem a rising tide of bloodshed, as a Palestinian bomber injured two border guards and the Israeli chief of staff escaped a bomb attack in the West Bank.
As the death toll of the 14-month Palestinian uprising neared 1,000, US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and retired Gen. Anthony Zinni arrived in Israel to push for a cease-fire that will hold on the ground, unlike a rash of failed truces beforehand. Despite the lack of fanfare, both sides were looking to Zinni and Burns to break the vicious cycle of violence and find a way to implement the internationally-backed Mitchell plan.
The mayhem showed little sign of slowing down as the US envoys arrived, with a Hamas bomber blowing himself up near the Erez checkpoint on the northern border of the Gaza Strip. Two Israeli border guards were slightly injured in the explosion. Israeli troops wounded four Palestinians in two separate incidents last evening in flash-point areas of the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian witnesses and hospital sources said.
Three unidentified Palestinians were wounded by an Israeli Army tank shell fired at a group of houses after an explosion at a roadside Israeli military checkpoint near the city of Khan Yunis, the witnesses said.
The three men, aged 17, 21 and 30 were hit by shrapnel but were not in serious condition, the hospital sources said. A 17-year-old Palestinian was also shot in the leg in the southern town of Rafah as he was walking near the Israeli-controlled border crossing into Egypt, without any apparent provocation, other hospital sources said.
Israeli soldiers also earlier stopped a taxi at a different military checkpoint leading into Khan Yunis and arrested four Palestinians, Palestinian security sources said. The security sources also said Israeli soldiers had opened fire with heavy machine guns at a checkpoint near the Khan Yunis refugee camp, but without causing any injuries.
