Mideast Violence Continues Amid Talk of New Contacts

Despite qualified efforts to resume Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic contacts, violence persisted Friday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Nine Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army fire, and a shepherd was critically injured in a shooting near a Jewish settlement. Police detained three settlers.

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian woman and her three daughters were injured when Israeli tanks fired on a residential area, Palestinian police said. An Israeli army spokesman said the shooting began when two grenades were thrown at Israeli army positions.

Palestinians fired shots near where Israel’s new defense minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, was visiting an Israeli army post in Gaza. Ben-Eliezer, accompanied by the army chief of staff and senior commanders, stood on the roof of the building when the shots rang out. The army said the shots apparently were aimed at a nearby army position, not at Ben-Eliezer.

In Gaza City, the Palestinian Authority said it was extending its hand in peace to the Jewish state and called for the lifting of an Israeli policy of “siege and destruction.”

Meeting Friday for the first time since Ariel Sharon took office as Israeli prime minister, the Palestinian Authority’s Cabinet discussed an early exchange of letters with Sharon.

The Cabinet said peacemaking could not succeed unless the Israeli army lifts a blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and of Palestinian cities in the two areas.

In a message to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat on Thursday, Sharon said the only way to achieve peace is through “direct talks and negotiations on the basis of written and signed agreements and obligations.”

Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed-Rabbo said Friday that “meetings might happen in the coming few days” but did not specify whether he was referring to contacts at the highest level.