JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Authority on Saturday welcomed a call by the leaders of the world's most powerful industrial nations for international observers to be sent to the region to monitor attempts at a cease-fire.
But the statement issued at the Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Italy, fell short of expectations voiced by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Saturday for a decision that would make it "obligatory for the Israeli side to stop this Israeli aggression."
Arafat's call came after one of the worst stretches of violence since a U.S.-backed cease-fire took effect more than a month ago.
A Palestinian was killed late Saturday in the Mougharka area of the Gaza Strip when the Israeli army fired two tank shells toward the neighborhood, Palestinian security officials said. Yehia Subhi Diya, 40, died of shrapnel wounds to the stomach after one of the shells hit his home, the officials and doctors said. The Israeli army said there was no tank shelling in the area.
The army also said two Palestinian gunmen shot at an army outpost in the nearby Jewish settlement of Netzarim late Saturday, and soldiers threw a grenade and fired light weapons in response.
About 5,000 Palestinians participated in a funeral procession Saturday for one of 14 people to die since Monday: Rajai Abu Rajab, an activist in the military wing of Arafat's Fatah party who died Friday night when an explosion flattened Fatah's Hebron office.
Arafat has not directly commented on the Hebron blast, which Fatah says was an Israeli attack with missiles and Israelis say was a "work accident" — a Palestinian bomb that prematurely exploded while being assembled. But he said the city is only one of many where violence is rising to dangerous levels.
The Palestinian leadership, meeting Saturday in Gaza City, called on the international community to implement as quickly as possible the G8 decision supporting the deployment of observers.
"Send them immediately in order to spare the blood of the Palestinian people," read an official statement.
Palestinians had wanted G8 leaders to toughen their foreign ministers' statement Thursday that urged outside cease-fire monitors, but only if both sides will accept them.
The foreign ministers said in their decision that monitors could help in implementing provisions of the Mitchell report, which has been accepted by all parties and contains security and political measures aimed at eventually bringing the two sides back to peace negotiations.
The G8 leaders decided Saturday to accept the foreign ministers' announcement as is.
"The situation in the Middle East presents a grave danger," read the G8 release. "Third-party monitoring, accepted by both parties, would serve their interests in implementing the Mitchell Report."
Israel opposes the deployment of international monitors.
"There is no danger of coercion (into accepting outside monitors) since both the foreign ministers' statement and the Mitchell report require the consent of both sides to any third-party involvement," Sharon's office said Friday.
Remarks by Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer that, if forced to accept monitors, an expanded CIA role would be acceptable, do not change Israel's opposition to the monitors, Sharon's office said.
Ben-Eliezer, in the first indication Israel may bend on monitors, told Israeli television Friday that "if something will be imposed on us ... I will accept the presence of the CIA here."
The CIA currently coordinates Israeli-Palestinian security meetings designed to restore security cooperation and trust between the parties.
Fourteen people have died since Monday, and each side blames the other for worsening the violence, which recently has included a Palestinian suicide bombing, an Israeli assassination strike, a drive-by shooting and a mysterious explosion. Palestinians fired mortars for the first time in the West Bank; Israel sent in more troops and tanks.
Israeli officials have flatly denied any involvement in the Hebron explosion Friday that Fatah officials said was a strike by two Israeli missiles.
Originally, Palestinian security sources also spoke of two missiles, but numerous witnesses told The Associated Press in the moments after the explosion that they did not see any helicopters over the building.
Also Saturday, two Palestinian activists wanted by Israel were injured in a small explosion in a Nablus apartment, witnesses said. Officials in the local governor's office said a gas canister had exploded.