Israeli border police conduct a search of a car belonging to Palestinian men after stopping them entering the West Bank city of Bethlehem

Additional reporting by Mustafa al-Sawwaf IOL Correspondent

GAZA CITY, July 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - One Palestinian was killed and a second was injured in a dawn explosion in the Gaza Strip, security and hospital sources said Saturday, July 5, with reports of clashes between Palestinian resistance activists and Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank town of Jenin.

Majdi Abu Shaluf, 22, was killed in the east of the town of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Earlier reports said Shaluf died as a result of Israeli gunfire but a Palestinian security spokesman later said: "Shaluf was killed by an explosive device left behind by the Israeli army," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The explosion occurred at 5:30 am (0230 GMT) in Khuzaa, near a security point separating the Gaza Strip and Israel and close to a newly reoccupied Palestinian police station, sources said.

The fate of a third man at the scene was not immediately known.

At around the same time, the Israelis said an explosion was reported at the Sufa crossing point between the Strip and Israel, as a patrol passed by, but there were no reports of injuries.

Shaluf's death brings to 3,376 the number of dead since the start of the Palestinian Intifada in September 2000, including 2,545 Palestinians and 770 Israelis, according to AFP figures.

Israeli Chief-of-Staff Moshe Yaalon admitted Friday, July 4, Israeli forces committed blunders against Palestinians during the three-year Intifada, while a new survey indicated that most Israelis do not believe Israel emerged victorious against the Intifada.

Two mortar shells and an anti-tank rocket were fired on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, while an Israeli patrol and a post came under fire near the Ganei Tal settlement, near Khan Yunis. The Israelis returned fire.

In Jenin, an Israeli tank overturned Friday night and its personnel exchanged fire with armed Palestinians but without causing causalities.

"At around 9:30 p.m. scores of Israeli tanks pushed deep into the city and besieged buildings and started shooting at them," Ahmad Alia, an eyewitness, told IslamOnline.net.

"Palestinians traded fire with Israeli troops who were trying to step out from an overturned tank," he added.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said Friday it arrested 12 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight, mostly activists from Fatah.

Six were abducted in the southern city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) while the others were detained in the north of the West Bank.

On Tuesday, July 1, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmmoud Abbas met with his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon, asserting that peace could only be materialized by giving the Palestinians their national rights.

There has been a marked drop in anti-Israeli attacks since the main Palestinian resistance groups agreed to call a halt to anti-Israeli attacks last Sunday, June 29.

The truce declaration coincided with an Israeli pull-out of the northern Gaza Strip and the transferring of security responsibilities to the Palestinians in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

However, senior officials of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (IJ) groups said dismissed as "not enough and not real" the Israeli pullout of the northern Gaza Strip.

Echoing the same feelings, local inhabitants reacted halfheartedly towards the Bethlehem step as "insincere" and "sham" .

'Positive'

"The meeting was positive and serious and we insisted on the liberation of Palestinian prisoners," said Hindi

In another development, Islamic Jihad leaders held "positive and serious" talks with Abbas in Gaza city on Friday night, a senior official from the resistance group told AFP.

"The meeting was positive and serious and we insisted on the liberation of Palestinian prisoners from the occupier's jails, which is a priority for the Palestinians," Mohammad al-Hindi said after the meeting.

"We discussed with Abu Mazen (Abbas's nom de guerre) the Israeli violations which we consider very serious," he said, referring to the killing early Thursday of Mohammad Shawera, local leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, by Israeli gunfire.

Hindi also said that after talks with Abbas a list would be compiled of prisoners whose release is considered a top priority, including those who have already served out long sentences, women, minors, the elderly and the infirm.

"On the subject of [releasing] prisoners, we have prioritized the subject based upon an agreement reached by all the factions,” the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted him as saying.

The paper said that the Israeli Shin Bet security service will present Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with two lists at Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting of the hundreds of Palestinian detainees it believes can be released, and those, responsible for anti-Israeli attacks, who are to remain jailed.

Hindi also said his group had raised the question of Palestinians recently arrested in the Gaza Strip after a rocket attack on the Kfar Darom settlement.

Four members of the Popular Resistance Committees -- which has not yet agreed to the truce -- were arrested by Palestinian security services after the attack.

However, the head of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees said Friday his group was ready to declare a truce if its detained activists were released by Israel.

"We are ready to talk with the Palestinian political leaders and, if Israel starts releasing our militants, we will immediately announce a truce like the other groups," Jamal Abu Samadana told AFP.

"We fired mortar shells on the Gush Katif and Kfar Darom settlements on Wednesday in response to the arrest of two of our members," Abu Samadana said, adding that the group "contacted Hamas and Islamic Jihad yesterday and informed them of our position and asked them to relay it."

The Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza-based coalition of groups with links to the mainstream Fatah faction, was one of the few resistance groups not to announce a truce last weekend.

More than 1,000 people gathered in Gaza City Friday for a rally organized by the committees "in memory of the martyrs," or those killed in the Palestinian Intifada.

A spokesman at the rally reaffirmed the group's position: "We are ready to join the truce if the enemy ends its aggression and frees all prisoners."