JENIN, West Bank (AFP) - A Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire as the Palestinian uprising entered its fifth year.
Saleh Bilalu, a 47-year-old mentally ill man, was killed in Jenin after he violated an Israeli army curfew imposed on the northern West Bank city where troops were conducting a search and arrest operation for a second straight day.
Palestinian medics said Bilalu died of a bullet wound to the stomach.
But Israeli military sources insisted he was shot in the leg and subsequently fell off the roof of a building.
His death took to 4,345 the overall toll since the start of the intifada or uprising four years ago, including 3,326 Palestinians and 948 Israelis.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's chief advisor, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said the anniversary was an occasion for a renewed effort for a negotiated solution.
"The only way to bring peace is through a ceasefire, an end to assassinations and a return to the negotiating table," he said.
"The Palestinian people is holding out for its rights and the establishment of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. That is the only way to reach peace, security and stability in the region."
The intifada was sparked when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, then still leader of the opposition, made a controversial visit to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site.
The compound was at the centre renewed controversy Tuesday after Israeli officials warned they might restrict access by worshippers during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which starts next month, for safety reasons.
Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra said a section of the complex was in danger of collapsing, making it necessary to impose restrictions on numbers.
But both Jordan and Egypt insisted the safety concerns were spurious, while Jerusalem's top Muslim cleric Sheikh Ekrima Sabri charged they were just a pretext for Israel to get its hands on the compound, which is also the holiest site in Judaism.
In southern Israel, the town of Sderot came under renewed rocket attack by Palestinian miltiants in the neighbouring Gaza Strip.
Police said several people were treated for shock but the makeshift missiles otherwise caused no casualties or damage.
In the southern West Bank, a wanted Palestinian from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement, was wounded by Israeli gunfire before being arrested by troops in a raid on the town of Bethlehem.
Troops arrested another six militants in the raid, in which two stonethrowing protestors were also wounded by Israeli gunfire.
Israel's policies in the occupied territories came under fire from four senior military officers in a letter to top brass leaked to the press.
The four officers from the elite Shaldag unit of the air force stressed their loyalty to the military but said they considered Israeli home demolitions in the West Bank and Gaza as "immoral collective punishment operations".