Five Palestinians shot dead after ceasefire talks

The Israeli army shot dead five Palestinians yesterday, throwing down the gauntlet to the United States which has been calling for a Middle East ceasefire with increasing urgency to pave the way for its anti-terror coalition building.

The killings threatened to make a mockery of an agreement confirmed only a day earlier at a long-awaited meeting between Shimon Peres, the Israeli Foreign Minister, and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. It came after days of impatient pressure from Washington.

Western diplomats were last night scrambling to keep an eight-day old ceasefire in place, and to ensure that a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs goes ahead today. If cancelled, it will mean that the ceasefire that Washington has so desperately sought is at serious risk of dying in its infancy. Today is supposed to be the start of the countdown towards implenting the blueprint for a return to peace talks, the Mitchell report. But last night that was in doubt.

The fractured truce, and efforts to return to negotiations, will come under more strain today as Palestinians take to the streets for the first anniversary of the start of the intifada. Planned mass marches could turn into violent confrontations.

The applause from the United States had barely died away after Wednesday's long-awaited ceasefire talks between Mr Peres and Mr Arafat – negotiations deemed crucial to America's coalition-building – before the fighting and the funerals resumed. The talks agreed to "maximum effort" to enforce a ceasefire.

Yet in the early hours yesterday Israel dispatched tanks and bulldozers to destroy eight Palestinian houses in a refugee camp in Rafah, close to the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt. A long gun battle erupted which left three Palestinians dead and – according to Palestinian hospital officials – at least 27 wounded. Two others – one of them a 15-year-old boy – were later shot dead elsewhere in Gaza by troops.

As the bodies of the dead were borne through the streets of an angry Gaza, crowds of mourners shouted for revenge. Activists from the Islamic militant parties – Hamas and Islamic Jihad – used loudspeakers to call on the crowd to ignore the Arafat–Peres agreement.

The killings, which came as Israel closed down for the Jewish Yom Kippur day of fasting, raise questions over whether the Israeli military is supporting the truce moves being pushed mainly by Mr Peres. The army said the Rafah raid was intended to destroy Palestinian buildings along the border which were used for weapons smuggling.