Violence prefaces Mid-East talks

Israeli police at the scene of a fatal drive-by shootings

A day of violence in the Palestinian areas has cast a shadow over crucial security talks currently taking place between Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Two Israelis have been shot and killed in drive-by shootings in the West Bank, and a Palestinian was killed by Israeli security forces near an army checkpoint in the city of Jericho.

In Gaza, two Palestinians were killed in a suicide attack on an Israeli army post, according to Israeli army radio. One Israeli soldier was injured.

Yasser Arafat: Talks must include issue of Jewish settlements

The security meeting, the first since April, is being chaired by US diplomats, and follows a bout of shuttle diplomacy by the new American envoy to the region, William Burns.

The talks have also been preceded by a row over the expansion of two Jewish settlements.

Settlement expansion

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel approved plans for 710 new homes in Jewish settlements around Jerusalem and the West Bank, sparking an angry reaction from Palestinian officials.

Palestinians warned that Israeli approval for the new housing could destroy the current mission of the US envoy.

Israeli officials said the decision to build new homes in Jewish settlements had first been made three months ago under a decision by the old government.

Israeli Housing Minister Nathan Sharansky said 493 of the new settler homes would be at Maale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement that lies just north of Jerusalem, and 217 housing units in Alfei Menashe in the northern West Bank.

Click here to see graphs showing the growth of settlements

"It is necessary to respond to the urgent need for housing in these settlements, whose development [enjoys] a large consensus among the Israeli population," he said.

There will be another time to address the political problems. Now the relevant issue is to bring about a cessation of hostilities and violence

Raanan Gissin, Israeli Government spokesman

But a BBC correspondent in Jerusalem says it is still a slap in the face for the Palestinians, who are demanding a complete freeze on all settlement activity as their prize for ending the uprising against Israeli occupation.

It also defies the Mitchell Commission report into the causes of the current violence which last week called for a freezing of Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories.

US-mediated talks

The Palestinians say that the issue of settlements should be included in the talks, but Israeli officials have ruled it out, insisting that a ceasefire is agreed first.

Israeli Government spokesman Raanan Gissin told the BBC: "There will be another time to address the political problems. Now the relevant issue is to bring about a cessation of hostilities and violence."

Since the current phase of violence erupted last September, 572 people have been killed, comprising 468 Palestinians, 88 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis, two Romanians and a German.

Threat to journalists

In a separate development, a splinter group of the Palestinian Fatah movement, the Fatah Hawks, has released a British and an American journalist, and their two Palestinian assistants.

They had been abducted in what the group said was a protest over British and American support for Israel.

The Fatah Hawks warned that in future, other journalists working for British and American media could be abducted and even killed.

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