Arafat calls for summit to discuss Mitchell report
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has called for a new Middle East summit to discuss the draft findings of a US-led fact-finding commission into the causes of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The draft report issued on Friday said Israel should freeze settlement construction, but did not recommend sending an international force to the region, as Palestinians have been demanding.
Israeli forces have carried out a rocket attack on the Jericho headquarters of a Palestinian security agency, injuring 17 people, Palestinians and an Israeli source said.
The headquarters of the Palestinian General Intelligence was hit by wire-guided missiles launched from a distant hill. They were fired by Israeli soldiers, an Israeli military official said. Seventeen officers of the agency and civilian personnel were injured, but not seriously.
Elsewhere, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a local leader of the radical Islamic Jihad movement in the West Bank, members of the militant group and Palestinian security officials said.
The Israeli army denied any knowledge of the shooting.
Ahmed Khalil Assad, 37, was shot as he left his home with his 2-year-old daughter, said a Palestinian security official. Witnesses said he was heading to work in his grocery store in Artas, a village near Bethlehem.
