4 Palestinians, 1 Israeli Slain as Arafat Plans for Summit

Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians who attacked an army post with grenades Saturday, as aides to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat said he would go to an Arab summit in Beirut after three months of confinement by Israel.

The militant Islamic group Hamas said the two men belonged to its armed wing. The army said the men attacked an outpost near the Jewish settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian teacher, Subhu abu Manus, was killed when Israeli tanks shelled the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza, Palestinian security sources and hospital officials said. The army denied it fired a tank shell in the area.

Palestinian sources said another Palestinian was killed by soldiers at a junction near a Jewish settlement in Gaza.

Their deaths preceded the emotional funeral of a 4-year-old girl, Reham abu Taha, shot in the head Thursday outside her home in Rafah. Crowds chanted, “Why was she killed?” as they carried her corpse, adorned with flowers, through Rafah’s dusty streets.

Then today, an Israeli woman was killed when suspected Palestinian militants opened fired on a car near the West Bank settlement of Ateret, north of the city of Ramallah, the Israeli army said.

The bloodshed, in the wake of three Palestinian suicide bombings since Wednesday, tore at hopes that U.S. envoy Anthony C. Zinni would succeed in brokering a cease-fire.

Talks on a cease-fire ended inconclusively Friday, and another session was scheduled for today.

Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, had restricted the globe-trotting Arafat to his offices in Ramallah because of repeated Palestinian shootings and suicide bombings. Sharon has demanded that Arafat crack down on Palestinian militants targeting Israeli civilians in 18 months of bloodshed, which has killed about 1,500 people.

U.S. officials want Arafat to attend the Arab summit to help give momentum to a Saudi plan for Middle East peace to be addressed there.

An Israeli security source said that Sharon had proposed, in talks with Vice President Dick Cheney last week, that he go to Beirut to present Israeli views on the Saudi plan.

But Sharon is unlikely to be welcome in Beirut, where he is reviled for masterminding Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

The plan by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah proposes that, in exchange for full normalization of Arab ties, Israel withdraw from land taken in the 1967 Middle East War.

Meanwhile, a report published today said Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources believe that Arafat has forged an alliance involved in Iranian shipments of weapons and money to Palestinian groups. The New York Times said the partnership was arranged in a clandestine Moscow meeting between Arafat aides and Iranian officials in May.

U.S. officials were troubled by intelligence reports “that Iran is harboring Al Qaeda members, including one leader who recently tried to mount an attack against Israel from his sanctuary in Iran,” the newspaper said.

Palestinian Authority officials dismissed the accusations of Iranian involvement.