Clashes resume as Barak inches closer to coalition government

Israeli troops and Palestinians clashed today as protesters tried to block a road with burning tires at a crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops and Palestinians clashed today as protesters tried to block a road with burning tires at a crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Israel radio reported that the soldiers fired live ammunition on the protesters, but the military said only that there was a confrontation with about 100 Palestinians at the Karni crossing point, used primarily by trucks to transport goods.

Also, soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets to disperse stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron, witnesses said. No injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, a 20-year-old Palestinian, Fadi Amin Dabaya, died Sunday, two days after being shot in the head during a clash with troops in the West Bank city of Jenin.

As the body was being removed from a hospital in the nearby city of Nablus, Palestinian demonstrators took the corpse and carried it toward a protest march, attended by some 2,000 activists. The marchers were headed in the direction of an Israeli military checkpoint south of Nablus, the scene of frequent clashes over the past month.

On Saturday, Israeli troops fought Arab stone throwers with rubber-coated bullets and tear gas at chronic trouble spots in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leaving more than 50 Palestinians injured.

Though the confrontations also included at least a dozen shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers and a homemade bomb thrown at a border police patrol, no one was killed, a rare occurrence since violence first erupted a month ago.

The month of bloodshed has left 133 people dead, most of them Palestinians, and put the peace process on hold.

The turmoil has also dealt a harsh economic blow to the already anemic Palestinian economy. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been unable to reach their jobs in Israel, and trade from the Palestinian territories to Jordan and Egypt has been scaled back significantly, Palestinian officials said Sunday.

Ibrahim Hawamdi, a young Palestinian watching the clashes in the restive West Bank town of Ramallah, said Saturday that Palestinian anger was still running high. But, he said, the uprising was taking a heavy economic toll.

"People want to go back to work, they're running out of money," Hawamdi said in reference to the more than 100,000 Palestinians working in Israel. Often, such workers provide the only source of income for large families.

The turmoil is also badly hurting the economy of Israel. Israeli economists estimate the losses so far at more than dlrs 1 billion, with the tourism business most severely affected. Many sectors of the Israeli economy, such as agriculture, suffer from the lack of Palestinian laborers.

On the political front, Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that after a week of tough negotiations he was close to forming a parliamentary coalition that could prevent the collapse of his minority government.

Parliament reconvenes Monday following a three-month recess, and Barak was moving toward a deal with the opposition Likud party in a bid to stay in power and stave off early elections.

Barak said he was making progress in talks with Ariel Sharon, the hawkish leader of Likud, although final details were still under discussion.

"We have to move forward together to lead the state through the emergency situation that has emerged," Barak said in an interview with Israel's army radio.

Sharon, who opposes Barak's land-for-peace policies, has been seeking a veto over future peace moves by Barak, a demand Barak has rejected, according to Israeli media reports.