Palestinians search through the rubble of the house of a Palestinian activist dynamited by the Israeli army

GAZA CITY, December 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian man and wounded three others during an incursion into the Gaza Strip late Thursday, December 19, Palestinian security sources said.

Six Israeli tanks and two bulldozers rolled into Deir el-Balah under cover of two attack helicopters firing automatic machine gun rounds, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Friday, December 20.

Israeli troops ordered the inhabitants of the home of a Fatah activist to evacuate the building before blowing it up with explosives, they confirmed.

There was no word on the identity of the victim whose death brings the toll from over two years of Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation to 2,778, mostly Palestinians.

Meanwhile, representatives from the Middle East quartet committee will meet Friday in Washington in a new bid to break the Mideast impasse with a blueprint for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, reported the BBC News Online.

The group, which comprises the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, will discuss a roadmap that proposes the creation of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace.

But hopes of anything substantial coming out of this meeting are not high.

The EU has been pushing for the peace plan to be published at the meeting, stressing that the whole process needs momentum.

The 15-memmber bloc says time is running out if the 2005 deadline for the creation of a permanent Palestinian state is to be met.

But publication seems highly unlikely, as the U.S. says it wants to wait until after the Israeli general election, scheduled for the end of January, before releasing exact details of the plan.

That leaves this meeting free to discuss any differences the members of the quartet themselves have over the blueprint.

The fact that the peace plan will not be published demonstrates once again that this is not a quartet of equals, and that Washington has the upper hand and the final say.

But there is increasing frustration about the role the U.S. is playing.

Speaking earlier this week, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana bemoaned the lack of a committed American partner in the process.

That may change after Iraq is disarmed, but in the meantime the only certainty seems to be that the killing and violence in the Middle East itself will continue.

In a phone call Thursday, December 19, U.S. President George W. Bush assured Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak he was committed to Middle East peace, but is "not ready" to forge ahead with the "roadmap" to a two-state solution.

Bush told Mubarak he still backed the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Bush said that "although consultations on the roadmap are not yet complete, we are committed to moving forward at the appropriate time on the roadmap to help the parties find a path to peace in the Middle East," added Fleischer.

The same argument was endorsed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell who announced Wednesday, December 18, that the three-phase plan would be put on the back burner until after Israel votes.

But the Palestinians warned that the delay could lead to the collapse of the initiative.

"The Americans will end up destroying what is left of the peace process, and will create even worse problems in the region by wrecking efforts by the U.N., EU and Russia," Palestinian Local Government Minister Saeb Erekat told AFP.

He said the United States was trying to support right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who wants the plan finalized only after Israeli elections.

Sharon, who has visited the White House seven times since taking office in March 2001, will face off against dovish Labor party leader Amram Mitzna, who campaigns on an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.