Israel threatens reprisals

Eight Israeli soldiers were injured in the attacks

Israel says it is preparing for military action in response to another day of violence which has left four Israelis and two Palestinians dead.

The Israelis were shot in three separate incidents in the West Bank and Gaza.

Two Palestinian teenagers were also killed by Israeli troops guarding a Jewish settlement near the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian teenager wrapped in a Palestinian flag

The Israeli military closed off Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank after Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army to take "necessary steps" following the deaths.

The BBC Jerusalem correspondent Hilary Andersson says the violence appears to be taking a new and more deadly pattern, coinciding with a call by the Palestinian Fatah Party to drive Israelis out of occupied land on Wednesday.

'Ambush'

This date - 15 November - marks the 12-year anniversary of a symbolic Palestinian statehood declaration.

An Israeli military official said on Monday that a Jewish settler and two Israeli soldiers were killed after a Palestinian in a car opened fire on two Israeli vehicles. Eight other soldiers were also wounded.

Ehud Barak will meet the UN Secretary General

The spokesman also said a truck driver was shot and killed in an ambush by Palestinians near the Kissufim crossing point between the Gaza strip and Israel.

An Israeli general accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of encouraging what he described as terrorist acts on Israeli citizens.

Palestinian deaths

Major-General Yitzhak Eitan, Israel's commander of the West Bank, speaking after the drive-by shootings, said the gunmen had fled into the Palestinian-ruled areas and accused the PA of doing nothing to find them.

The gunmen are enjoying the support of the Palestinian leadership in killing as many Israeli citizens as possible

Major-General Yitzhak Eitan

A third Palestinian - a nephew of Mohammed Dahlan, head of Palestinian preventive security in Gaza - died on Monday of wounds sustained on Saturday.

The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has held direct talks with the militant Hamas movement in what is seen by observers as part of his efforts to unify Palestinian political and military policy towards Israel.

The meeting between Mr Arafat and senior Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal - the first in five years - took place on the sidelines of the Islamic summit in Qatar.

Possible summit

Hamas, the leading opposition movement to Mr Arafat in the Palestinian territories, has called for a intensification of the Palestinian intifada and attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Monday's killings came shortly after US President Bill Clinton was reported to have told Mr Barak that he wanted to hold another three-way Middle East summit.

Mr Barak has given few details of his meeting with Mr Clinton on Sunday night, but Israeli officials have been quoted as saying there had been no breakthrough.

But in a brief statement after the talks, the Israeli leader did not rule out the possibility of renewed peace talks, but insisted that first of all the violence had to stop.

Mr Barak is scheduled to meet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan during a brief stopover in London on Tuesday, according to an Israeli spokesman.