Friends read the Muslim holy book, the Quran, next to the body of 14-year old Kamal Nawahdah who was shot by Israeli soldiers last week

GAZA CITY, May 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Israel killed 2 Palestinians, abducted nine others, demolished 5 homes and damaged 20 others in a new incursion in Gaza Strip and Jenin on Thursday, May 29, hours before Palestinian prime minister is set to meet with his Israeli counterpart to discuss Middle East "peace roadmap."

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian during an incursion in the southern Gaza Strip and a member of the Islamic Jihad resistance group in the West Bank, Palestinian sources said.

The killings came on the same day as Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas is set to meet with his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, to discuss implementation of an internationally drafted Middle East peace "roadmap."

Mohammed el-Kadra, 24, died when Israeli soldiers backed by tanks searched houses in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis, the sources said according to Agence-France Presse (AFP).

Relatives said Kadra had been wounded and was being carried to his house when Israeli soldiers intervened and shot him dead in a nearby street.

The Israeli army said 29 people were abducted in the Khan Yunis incursion.

Earlier, in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, an Islamic Jihad activist was shot dead by Israeli troops, the group's local leader and Palestinian medical sources told AFP.

Saed Fahmawi, 23, was hit during heavy clashes that broke out as more than 20 tanks and jeeps launched an incursion into the town and its neighboring refugee camp, the Jihad leader said.

Clashes were still ongoing in the area, the sources said.

An army spokesman said the incursion was aimed at "dismantling in Jenin the infrastructures of terrorist organizations, who were preparing attacks.

The army also said nine Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank overnight.

Separately, the army demolished four homes and damaged another 20 in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, Palestinian security sources said.

The latest deaths bring to 3,268 the number of people killed since the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation broke out in September 2000, including 2,466 Palestinians and 742 Israelis.

Abbas to discuss roadmap with Sharon ahead of three-way Jordan summit

Meanwhile, Palestinian prime minister said he would meet Israeli Prime Minister Sharon on Thursday to discuss implementing a peace plan ahead of a three-way summit next week with U.S. President George W. Bush.

But with the first phase of the document in theory expiring this week, the roadmap has had little impact on the ground.

"I will meet Ariel Sharon tomorrow to discuss the implementation of the roadmap," Abbas said after talks in Ramallah on the West Bank with Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio.

The second meeting between the two prime ministers since the international peace plan was published last month was initially due to take place on Wednesday but postponed, officially due to "scheduling problems".

Palestinian information minister Nabil Amr told AFP in Jericho the meeting would take place in occupied Jerusalem, while another official said it would be late Thursday at a venue to be decided at the last moment for security reasons.

The three-phase plan drafted by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia calls for an end to Israeli-Palestinian violence, a freeze on Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian land and an Israeli troop withdrawal.

The Israeli cabinet last Sunday approved the blueprint designed to pave the way for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, albeit with a list of 14 reservations, including denying Palestinians’ right of return.

The Israeli government had earlier proposed more than 100 amendments to the "roadmap", although the Palestinians unconditionally okayed it. But Washington kept insistence that the plan would go unchanged.

But Abbas dismissed Israel's attempts at reshaping the plan once again and stressed the United States had made it clear the roadmap had to be implemented unchanged from the way it was submitted to both parties a month ago.

"We don't accept each side picking and choosing only those specific elements that are convenient for them in the roadmap," he said in an interview published by the Israeli daily Haaretz.

But he also admitted in the same interview that his part of the deal was not easy and warned that he could not deliver on his pledge to disarm resistance groups "overnight".

He said the Palestinian security services in the West Bank had been "completely destroyed" in Israeli army raids and 70 percent destroyed in the Gaza Strip.

After a meeting with the Spanish foreign minister also in Ramallah, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat urged Spain -- a strong backer of the U.S.-led war in Iraq -- to use its good relations with the White House in promoting implementation of the roadmap.

Bush is for the first time getting personally involved in the Middle East conflict in a bid to kickstart implementation of the ailing plan.

The U.S. president will hold talks first with several Arab leaders in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on June 3, before hopping over the Red Sea for a summit with King Abdullah of Jordan in Aqaba, a White House spokesman said Wednesday.

Egypt said Abbas would also take part in the Sharm el-Sheikh talks.

While in the Jordanian resort on June 4, Bush is expected to meet both the Israeli and Palestinian premiers, although there was still no confirmation from any of the parties.

Bush hopes to get not only "a solid expression of support" from Arab leaders for the roadmap but also "a commitment" from them to help the Palestinians overhaul their security arrangements, to condemn terrorism and to isolate groups “behind extremist violence”, said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to Palestinian resistance groups.

The talks would mark Abbas's entry into the international arena, four weeks after his power-sharing post was created, and crown U.S.-Israeli attempts to sideline Arafat.

Ahead of the push for peace, a 15-year-old Palestinian was shot in the eye by Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Tulkarem.

Near the southern town of Hebron, an Israeli was lightly wounded as a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a bus, Israeli military sources said.

Israeli public radio reported that a home-made Qassam rocket was fired from the northern Gaza Strip on the nearby Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday, without causing injury.

A Palestinian former member of Yasser Arafat's Force 17 elite guard was shot dead in a brutal revenge killing near the West Bank town of Ramallah on Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said.

Meanwhile, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction, surprisingly welcomed Sharon's endorsement of the roadmap.

"The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are happy that Sharon and the Israeli government accepted the roadmap -- it is a good thing," spokesman Abu Mujahed told AFP by phone.

But if the roadmap was going to be effective, the Israeli army had to first stop assassinating the leaders of the 32-month Palestinian uprising, he said.

The Islamic resistance group Hamas was less compromising in its stand, warning that next week's Middle East summits would fail unless the Palestinians were given their full rights.

"If these summits don't give the Palestinian people all their full rights, they will fail," Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told AFP.