Israeli airstrike kills two, injures six

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Two Palestinians were killed and six wounded in an Israeli airstrike on two vehicles near the southern Gaza Strip's border with Egypt yesterday evening, witnesses and hospital staff said. The Israeli military confirmed it carried out an attack in the area, near the Rafah frontier crossing, but could not immediately give details.

The militant Islamic Jihad group said some of its members were in at least one of the two vehicles struck by Israeli missiles -- a Mercedes and a pickup parked next to it. Witnesses said several explosions came from the pickup after the attack, suggesting that it had been carrying explosives.

The group said its operatives had fired a rocket into Israel before the airstrike, but it was not clear whether they were the same group hit by the Israeli strike.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials said yesterday that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, would meet tomorrow with the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, in the West Bank city of Jericho.

An Israeli government spokesman could not immediately confirm the date or location of the proposed meeting but said one would take place "very soon."

A gap was already becoming apparent, though, between Palestinian expectations and Israel's stated intentions regarding what the meeting would cover. An Abbas aide, Nabil Amr, said the leaders must be ready to hold "political" talks that included so-called final status issues for the creation of a Palestinian state, including borders.

The two leaders had originally planned to meet in Jericho in early June.