BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Palestinians, marking the anniversary of their first uprising, threw rocks and fought gun battles with Israeli troops Friday. Seven Palestinians were killed, and two Israelis were slain in a drive-by shooting.
The bloody clashes Friday, the deadliest day of Israeli-Palestinian fighting since Nov. 21, dimmed prospects of a resumption of peace talks. A U.S.-led fact-finding commission is to arrive in the region Monday to look into the causes of the violence.
Palestinian activists had called for a "day of rage" to mark the Dec. 8, 1987, start of the six-year uprising that led to a mutual recognition treaty between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and paved the way for peace talks.
In the second uprising, which erupted Sept. 28, more than 300 people have been killed, the vast majority Palestinians.
"What happened today is a confirmation . . . that the uprising is continuing," said Marwan Barghouti, head of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank. "The uprising is a strategic choice of the Palestinian people, and it can't be stopped. There will be an escalation in the coming days."
Friday's battles came after Palestinians poured out of mosques following Ramadan prayers.
In the deadliest incident, four Palestinian policemen and a civilian were killed in the West Bank town of Jenin when an Israeli tank fired shells at a Palestinian police post, witnesses said. The army said the shells were fired at four suspicious figures that soldiers spotted in the distance.
Outside the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, scores of Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli police after noon prayers and set fire to a small police post. Police fired rubber-coated steel pellets, tear gas and stun grenades.
A Palestinian was killed and six demonstrators injured. Several police officers were also hurt. The confrontation spilled over into the Via Dolorosa, or Way of Sorrows, the path tradition says Jesus took to his crucifixion.
In biblical Bethlehem, a 16-year-old rock-thrower was killed by a shot to the head during clashes outside Rachel's Tomb, a heavily guarded Israeli enclave.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinians shooting from abandoned high-rise buildings waged intense battles with Israeli troops. A gun fight also erupted in the town of Hebron, with Israeli soldiers shooting from the border of the downtown area they control at gunmen hiding in narrow alleys in the Palestinian sector.
Earlier, Palestinians sprayed an Israeli van with gunfire, killing a schoolteacher and a driver. The van was on a bypass road used by settlers traveling around the West Bank city of Hebron, near the entrance to the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.
The slain teacher had been on her way to school in Kiryat Arba. The driver of the van was critically wounded and later died. Another teacher was slightly wounded.
On a settler bypass road near the town of Jericho, Palestinians fired on an Israeli bus, wounding two passengers, including one who was in critical condition.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said "attacks on civilians show cowardice" and vowed to punish the perpetrators. Barak spoke after a meeting with Israelis who have lost relatives in Palestinian attacks and appealed to him to renew peace negotiations.
The bereaved families met Thursday with Yasser Arafat and told Barak the Palestinian leader was ready to resume talks, without preconditions.
"We ... bring a message to Prime Minister Barak," said the leader of the group, Yitzhak Frankenthal. "We were sitting with Arafat and he said he would like to make a peace agreement with Israel."
Most bereaved relatives are not politically active; however, some have also advocated taking harsher steps against the Palestinians.