March 25, 2002	Monday	Muharram 10, 1423

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TEL AVIV, March 24: Despite intensified US-led efforts to close in on an elusive ceasefire, nine Palestinians and an Israeli were killed in incidents across the region on Sunday, from the normally quiet Golan region, in the northeast, to Gaza in the southwest.

In the bloodiest incident of the day, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops as they tried to sneak across the border from Jordan into the Golan region, Israeli military sources said.

Another three Palestinians were shot dead near the Jewish settlement of Netzer Hazani in the southern Gaza Strip by the Israeli army, an army spokesman said.

An army spokesperson said the incident occurred near Ein Sarid, close to the Tel Katsir kibbutz, at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee.

The Israeli army said a group of four armed men, dressed in military fatigues, had crossed the border from Jordan, had been identified and shot dead by Israeli troops.

Each of the men was wearing khaki fatigues and carrying two guns, one of which was a Kalashnikov, a commando knife and a large quantity of ammunition, the army said.

“There is no doubt that a very big terrorist attack was planned and we stopped it,” the spokesperson added.

The Israeli army had been on high alert in the northern Jordan valley area and was scouring villages after reports that the Jordanian army had shot dead two anti-Israeli guerillas in a group trying to cross the border.

Holiday-makers in the area were sent away in the morning and schools cancelled outings, Israel radio said.

A Jordanian army spokesman confirmed that a military patrol had been fired on the night before by a group of men trying to slip into Israel, but made no comment on the reports that the army had shot dead two militants.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli settler woman was shot dead by Palestinians as she was travelling on a bus north of the West Bank town of Ramallah.

The Palestinians, travelling in a car, fired shots through the windshield of the armoured bus near the Jewish settlement of Ateret, 10 kilometres north of Ramallah, and mortally wounded Esther Kleinman, 23, the radio said.

The young woman died before she could be helped by medics, it said.

The attack was claimed a short time later by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a radical group linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

“Our fighters carried out an attack with automatic weapons against a settlers’ bus ... near the colony of Ateret. The passengers were directly hit and our fighters withdrew safe and sound,” the group said in a statement.—AFP