Four killed in Mideast clash

Peres, who has been in Brussels, is due to meet PM Sharon on Friday, reports say

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Three Palestinians and one Israeli were killed Tuesday in a clash south of here near the village of Tel Bourin.

The Israel Defense Forces said an Israeli patrol traveling in a jeep was attacked by Palestinian gunmen and there was an exchange of gunfire. Both the IDF and the Palestine Red Crescent Society said three Palestinians were killed.

Security sources said an Israeli was severely injured and later died.

News of the attack came as The Associated Press reported that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and foreign minister, Shimon Peres, were due to meet Friday to discuss a new peace initiative, but differences remain between the two, Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin told AP.

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Peres acknowledged last week that he was working on a new peace plan. Israeli news reports said it called for a Palestinian state and the dismantling of Jewish settlements in Gaza, where about 7,000 Israelis live amid more than a million Palestinians.

Sharon has not said he would dismantle any of the nearly 150 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- where some 200,000 Israelis live -- and in the past he has been one of the key backers of the Jewish settler movement.

Gissin said Tuesday the latest version of the plan did not include the issue of dismantling settlements. He said that was to be decided later during negotiations on a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians.

The initiative came after Israel said it planned to continue to withdraw troops from six Palestinian towns, declaring its mission to root out terrorist suspects accomplished.

But it said it was holding up the next phase following a bomb attack on a Jewish settlement near one of the West Bank towns, Jenin.

Israeli troops pulled out of the town of Qalqilya early Monday, but Israeli forces remained in parts of Jenin, Ramallah and Tulkarem.

Three Israelis were injured, one seriously, when the bomb went off in the makeshift cafeteria at a factory in the Shaked settlement near Jenin, police said.

The militant Islamic Jihad said they had carried out the attack.

In Brussels, meanwhile, at a dinner on Monday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Peres had what their Belgian hosts described as a "direct political dialogue" for the first time since they were pressured into talks by the U.S. on September 26.

Israel pulled out of Qalqilya despite a deadly bus attack on Sunday

Arafat and Peres had earlier each met Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, whose country now holds the EU presidency. Officials said he urged them to resume peace talks.

The continuing presence of Israeli tanks and troops in Palestinian territory, drawing constant criticism from the United States, was a factor in Sharon's decision to call off a trip to Britain and the U.S., set for later this week, Gissin said.

He said the trip, including talks with U.S. President George W. Bush, is now rescheduled tentatively for the end of November, stressing that Sharon wanted to see through completion of the withdrawal.

Palestinians say Sharon was trying to avoid U.S. pressure to end the violence.

Bush, keen not to alienate Muslim support for its anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, has called for an Israeli pullout as soon as possible.

During the incursions, 42 armed militants were killed in clashes with Israeli forces, and 15 others were killed in targeted operations by special forces, Sharon told his party's parliament members.

Usually Israeli officials do not confirm special operations, which Palestinians describe as "assassinations."

Israeli forces had also arrested 85 suspected militants, Sharon added.

In 13 months of fighting, 741 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 194 on the Israeli side, AP said.