Violence Mars Arab-Israeli Truce

Israeli troops fatally shot a commander of the militant group Islamic Jihad on Tuesday during a gun battle in the West Bank, and three farm workers in a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip were later killed by a Palestinian rocket attack.

The incidents and two other violent deaths Tuesday tested a cease-fire announced by the main Palestinian factions in March, but there was no immediate sign that the agreement was in danger. Still, the outbreak marred a period of relative calm and raised fears of reprisals by both sides.

Marwah Kamil, a fugitive leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank, died during a three-hour shootout with Israeli soldiers sent to arrest him. Kamil was high on the Jewish state’s list of wanted men after escaping from a Palestinian prison last year. Israel said he had planned attacks and recruited fighters.

Under an Israeli policy restricting such raids during the cease-fire, top Israeli commanders authorized the operation, the army said.

Troops met gunfire when they surrounded a house in the village of Kabatiya where Kamil was reportedly hiding, the military said, and a soldier suffered a minor wound. Israeli forces fired back and killed at least two people, including the 25-year-old Kamil, an army spokeswoman said.

There were conflicting reports concerning a second man slain. Palestinian officials said Nasser Zakarneh, 23, was an unarmed police officer and was not involved in the shootout. But the Israeli army said both Palestinians had opened fire on soldiers. Israeli officials said later that their records listed Zakarneh as an Islamic Jihad militant.

In Gaza, one Chinese and two Palestinian workers were killed and five Palestinian workers were injured when a Kassam rocket struck a greenhouse in Ganei Tal, a Jewish settlement. There were several other instances of rocket, mortar and antitank missile fire directed against Jewish targets in Gaza on Tuesday.

The military wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad separately declared that they had fired rockets and mortars into settlements, apparently including the attack on Ganei Tal.

The militant groups said they were answering the fatal Kabatiya raid and a scuffle a day earlier between Israeli police and Muslim worshipers at the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City. The mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, is on a site sacred to Jews and Muslims and has been a tinderbox for violence.

Hamas also cited the Israeli army’s fatal shooting of a man who crossed the Egyptian border into Gaza along a prohibited military zone early Tuesday. Soldiers suspected he was trying to plant a bomb or planned to shoot at them, the army said. But a subsequent check of the area, a scene of frequent clashes and arms smuggling, turned up no weapons or explosives.

Palestinians in Gaza also fired three Kassam rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot, damaging a house but causing no injuries. Sderot, near the Gaza Strip, has been a frequent target of barrages.

Israeli military officials said a dozen Kassams had landed in Israeli communities since May 1, and that more than 90 mortar shells had hit Israeli targets or near them.

Israeli officials charge that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is doing too little to clamp down on militants as Israel prepares to remove Jewish settlers and soldiers from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank. Abbas persuaded the militant factions to adhere to the cease-fire announced by Israel and the Palestinians at a summit meeting in February.

Israel has warned that its army might retake Palestinian cities near the Gaza settlements if attacks threaten to disrupt the pullout, scheduled to begin in mid-August.

The withdrawal is bitterly opposed by many of the settlers and their right-wing political allies, who hope to scuttle the plan through disobedience.

Giora Eiland, the head of Israel’s National Security Council, complained that continued wrangling with settler leaders over suitable replacement housing was generating confusion around the preparations and threatening to undermine public support for the plan.

He urged the government Tuesday to stick to the August timetable.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials complained that Israel was not fulfilling promises to coordinate the withdrawal with them. Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian minister of civil affairs, said the Israelis had provided maps and other information on the settlements to be evacuated that were out of date.