GAZA, Aug 11: Violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip brought to at least five the number of weekend deaths, as US and Palestinian officials held security talks in Washington that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called “very positive”.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian gunman in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, while a Palestinian infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Mehora in the West Bank late on Saturday, killing a woman and wounding her husband. Israeli soldiers shot the attacker dead.

Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops in Nablus and the West Bank city of Tulkarm on Friday and Saturday.

In renewed US efforts to end more than 22 months of Middle East bloodshed, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya met CIA director George Tenet on Saturday to discuss reorganising Palestinian security forces.

“The talks were very positive,” Arafat told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, referring to the Yahya-Tenet talks and those Yahya held with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.—Reuters