JERUSALEM -- New clashes broke out Tuesday in the West Bank as domestic pressure mounted on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abandon the land-for-security agreement with the Palestinians.
The violence and Israel's political turmoil came just days before President Clinton's visit to Israel and the Palestinian areas next week.The trip was intended to shore up the agreement signed Oct. 23 in Washington and to restore calm to the region but appeared to be having the opposite effect.
In Gaza City, armored personnel carriers were deployed outside the convention center where Clinton is to address 1,500 Palestinian delegates next week. Later in the week, streets around the hall will be sealed.
The Palestinians have presented a plan for protecting Clinton to U.S. Secret Service agents in Gaza, and the United States has given the Palestinians sophisticated bomb detection devices.
The Islamic militant group Hamas has not openly threatened Clinton. However, it is bent on derailing the peace effort and has carried out more than a dozen suicide bombings in Israel.
Palestinians threw stones at Israeli troops and motorists in three separate clashes Tuesday in the West Bank. In the town of Ram, north of Jerusalem, soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at high school students, injuring four. In the Kalandia refugee camp, troops fired rubber bullets after their jeep was stoned and an officer was slightly injured. Near Bethlehem, an 11-year-old Israeli girl was hurt when stones struck the car she was riding in.
Tensions in the Palestinian areas have been running high because of a dispute with Israel over the release of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinians hope Clinton will back their demand that Israel free more Palestinians held for anti-Israeli activities.
Also Tuesday, dozens of Jewish settlers protested outside Netanyahu's office after assailants, apparently Palestinians, wounded a West Bank settler in a drive-by shooting late Monday.
The driver is a resident of the Ganim settlement, one of several left isolated after Israel withdrew troops from 2 percent of the West Bank under the first stage of the land-for-peace agreement.
"Only 17 days have passed since the withdrawal and already they are shooting at us," read a sign held by the protesters.
In a Jerusalem hospital, a 21-year-old Palestinian university student remained on life support Tuesday after being wounded in a clash with an Israeli civilian and soldiers.
The victim, Nasr Erekat, is a cousin of Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who accused Netanyahu of triggering new violence by suspending the upcoming Israeli troop pullback in the West Bank until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat meets a number of demands.