Israeli-Palestinian peace talks shelved over West Bank deaths

Peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators expected on Monday have been shelved after Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinians during clashes in the West Bank, a Palestinian official said.

"The meeting that was to take place in Jericho...today was cancelled because of the Israeli crime committed in Qalandiya today," the official told AFP, referring to the refugee camp where the clashes erupted before dawn.

Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinians and wounded 19 others on Monday in a clash in the West Bank's Qalandiya refugee camp, Palestinian hospital officials told AFP.

They said Rubeen Abed Fares, 30, and Yunis Jahjouh, 22, were both shot in the chest and Jihad Aslan, 20, died of brain damage.

The hospital officials said all the casualties had been hit by live ammunition.

An Israeli police spokeswoman told AFP said that border police used “riot dispersal means” to disperse a stone-throwing crowd of 1,500 people, but she could not immediately confirm any fatalities or the use of live fire.

“In the early hours of the morning a border police team went into Qalandiya camp to arrest a hostile terrorist activist,” spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

“After his arrest a mob of about 1,500 residents began a disturbance, throwing petrol bombs and stones, endangering the lives of force members, who responded with riot dispersal means.”

“We do not know of any fatalities on the other side,” she added. “We know of three injured who were taken to a (Palestinian) hospital but we do not know of danger to their lives.”

She said that three border policeman were lightly injured by stones.