Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Thursday that international and regional powers should exert pressure on Israel to force it to give up what he called "anti-Palestinian" policies.

Shaath, who is in Cairo attending the extraordinary meeting of Arab foreign ministers which opened earlier in the day, called on Israel to stop "aggressions" against the Palestinian people to show its sincerity about peace.

The top Palestinian diplomat said the last four years of conflicts between the two sides have seen tens of thousands of Palestinians killed or injured, which only leads to a vicious circle of "violence for violence."

He added peace talks with Israel can be started only if Israel withdraws its forces to the borders before 2000 when Palestinians launched the latest round of armed uprising against Israeli occupation.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Minister for Prisoners Affairs Hisham Abdel Razeq said Thursday that a joint Palestinian-Israeli meetingto be held in two weeks will focus on ways of improving conditionsof Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Prior to the meeting, he will visit Israeli jails first to see the prisoners' conditions on the ground, Razeq said, adding the issue of prisoners was an important part of any future agreement with Israel.

On Thursday, Israel escalated its operation in Gaza Strip as some Israeli troops thrust in the morning into the refugee camp ofBureig in central Gaza Strip, killing one Palestinian and woundingfour others.

The Israeli troops, backed by about a dozen tanks and two bulldozers, raided the eastern part of the refugee camp of Bureig,and the bulldozers started to raze cultivated land, said Palestinian security sources.

In the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahya, Israeli troops besieged a building belonging to Mohammed el-Hilo, and arrested atleast 40 Palestinians.

Earlier in the day, one Palestinian, identified as Alaa Hosanna,was shot dead by Israeli soldiers when he was driving a pregnant woman to the Kamal Edwanin hospital in Beit Lahya. The woman was also wounded.

In another development, Israeli planes fired at least three missiles at targets north of the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.One missile destroyed an empty car and the other two landed on an open field near the refugee camp of Al Maghazi. No injures were reported.

Meanwhile, the Ezel Dein al Qassam Brigades, an armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), claimed responsibility Thursday for shelling the Israeli town of Sha'ar Hanegev, southeast of the Gaza Strip.

The brigades said in a leaflet sent to reporters that its militants fired a homemade Qassam rocket to Sha'ar Hanegev, in response to Israel's continuous incursion into the central Gaza refugee camp of Bureig.

On Thursday night, two Palestinians and five Israelis were killed when the militants staged an attack against an Israeli armybase at the Karni commercial passage in eastern Gaza.

According to Israel Radio, a huge bomb of up to 150 kg had beendetonated at the site, while rescue services reported militants were firing mortar rounds at the site shortly after the explosion and that Israeli troops exchanged fire with the attackers.

Shortly after the attack, the Popular Resistance Committee, Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades and Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed jointly responsibility.

The bloody incidents came just four days after Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chief Mahmoud Abbas was elected the new Palestinian National Authority president in Sunday's polls, overshadowing a possible revival of the long-stalled Middle East peace process.

Source: Xinhua