Bloody Anniversary In Mideast

The 25th anniversary of the Camp David accords was marked Friday by violence and anger, as three militants died and the family of a Palestinian boy lashed out at militants who deployed him as a human bomb.

One militant was killed when an explosion went off in a station wagon he was driving in a West Bank refugee camp, security officials said.

The dead militant was identified as Ahmed al-Abed from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, an armed group with ties to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

Palestinian security officials said the vehicle apparently was loaded with explosives that blew up prematurely. But an Al Aqsa member initially said al-Abed's car was apparently hit by an Israeli tank shell fired from a mountaintop post overlooking Balata. The army had no immediate comment.

Elsewhere, two armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement before being killed by Israeli troops in a gun battle, the army said. Hamas claimed responsibility.

Mideast tensions have increased significantly since Israel assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin on Monday. Hamas has vowed bloody revenge, saying even Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is a target.

In the wake of the assassination, Egypt boycotted celebrations of the 1979 Camp David accords, in which Egypt became the first Arab neighbor to make peace with Israel, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.

At the United Nations, the United States on Thursday vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for the assassination. The U.S. ambassador complained that the text did not mention Hamas attacks against Israelis.

Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the U.S. veto will be seen by Israel "as an encouragement to continue the path of violence, escalation, assassination and reoccupation."

The Hamas military wing issued a rare videotaped statement Thursday, threatening retaliation against Israelis in graphic terms.

In the tape, given to the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV channel, a masked man declared: "We say to the pig Sharon that we will pound your fortresses and make you curse yourself 1,000 times for merely thinking of assassinating our leaders and symbols."

The settlement attack "is the beginning of earthshaking operations to come," a Hamas leaflet said.

Despite Hamas' renewed threats, Israel's tightened security has foiled several attacks. On Wednesday, soldiers stopped a 16-year-old Palestinian youth with a bomb vest strapped to his body at a crowded West Bank checkpoint, setting off a tense encounter with soldiers.

The family of the teenager said he was gullible and easily manipulated, and relatives demanded that militants stop using children for attacks.

"It is forbidden to send him to fight. He is young, he is small, he should be in school. Someone pressured him, maybe because they killed Ahmed Yassin," wailed Abdo's mother, Tamam.

On Thursday, Palestinian intellectuals and moderates urged an end to violence, a rare appeal in more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The group ran a half-page advertisement in the Palestinian Al-Ayyam newspaper, asking Palestinians to use peaceful means of protest against Israeli occupation.

The intellectuals who signed the ad — including peace advocate Sari Nusseibeh, lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi and Abbas Zaki, a leading member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement — said revenge attacks over Yassin's assassination would lead to strong Israeli retaliation and further hurt the Palestinian cause.

Despite the great hardships the bloodshed has caused, there has been little public debate among Palestinians over whether the violent uprising was a mistake.

Since violence erupted in September 2000, 2,762 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 942 on the Israeli side. The Palestinian economy has been devastated, and a web of Israeli roadblocks severely disrupts daily life.

Israel's economy may be hurt by the assassination of Yassin and Hamas' vow of retaliation. A European president and a Spanish basketball team canceled trips to Israel. And tour operators say large numbers of tourists have called off their trips to the Holy Land.

The vetoed U.N. resolution condemned Yassin's death and called for a "complete cessation of extrajudicial executions."

It also condemned "all terrorist attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction."

However, it did not mention any militant groups by name — a traditional U.S. demand.

A U.S. draft proposal would have deleted all condemnation of "extrajudicial executions." That issue is a touchy one for the Americans, because the United States has marked suspected terrorists for death in the past.

Eleven countries — China, Russia, France, The Philippines, Angola, Chile, Pakistan, Spain, Algeria, Benin and Brazil — voted in favor of the resolution. Britain, Germany and Romania abstained from the vote. Only the United States voted against the measure.

Earlier this week, Israeli envoys met U.S. officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The officials proposed to evacuate nearly all Gaza settlements, as well as six West Bank settlements, a senior Israeli government official said.

Sharon has suggested the Gaza pullout as part of a plan to reduce friction with the Palestinians in the absence of a peace agreement. The plan is expected to include a limited pullback from the West Bank, where Israel would impose a boundary.

On Friday, Israel's vice premier said Israel is not seeking U.S. approval of its plan to withdraw from most of the Gaza Strip, although it would like to coordinate certain moves with Washington.

Sharon's aides initially suggested that in exchange for withdrawing from Gaza, Israel is seeking U.S. approval of an Israeli annexation of several West Bank settlement blocs in a final peace deal. Israeli officials, including the foreign minister, have said Washington is unwilling to give such guarantees.