2 Palestinians Killed, 50 Hurt in Gaza Strife : Israel: TV says one death resulted from an Arab attempt to kill Palestinian negotiator. But he rejects the account.

JERUSALEM — Two Palestinians were shot and killed Thursday as Israeli troops clashed for the third day with residents of the occupied Gaza Strip. More than 50 other people were wounded, mostly in the fighting around the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, according to army and hospital reports.

Yusuf Ibrahim Gharib, 42, a teacher at a local school operated by the United Nations for Palestinian refugees, was killed Thursday evening, according to Palestinian sources, when troops fired at a group of stone-throwing youths.

State-run Israel television claimed, however, that the gunfire that killed Gharib came from Palestinians trying to kill Dr. Haidar Abdul-Shafi, the chief Palestinian negotiator at the Washington peace talks with Israel. It reported that Abdul-Shafi was leaving a wake for a local leader of Fatah, the principal group within the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Implying that its information came from Israeli security officials, the report said the assailants were members of the Red Eagles, a guerrilla group loyal to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist rival of Fatah.

But Abdul-Shafi, 73, whose medical practice is in the Gaza Strip, rejected the Israeli account completely, saying that Gharib, who was only a few feet away, apparently was struck by army fire directed toward stone-throwing youths in the crowd from more than 200 yards away.

“I don’t think (the soldiers) or anyone else was aiming at me,” Abdul-Shafi said by telephone from Gaza. “And I don’t understand why, except to make mischief, the Israelis would say that I was the target of an assassination attempt when I was not.”

Israeli officials, hoping to justify their expulsion of 415 suspected supporters of militant Islamic groups, have maintained for several months that members of the delegation had received death threats from radicals for taking part in the peace talks.

“To be sure, we have our differences with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine over the negotiations,” Hanan Ashrawi, the spokeswoman for the delegation, commented. “They don’t believe we should be talking with the Israelis, but we are committed to this peace process. In any event, neither side tries to resolve the differences through assassinations.

“This is another alarming escalation in the violence in the occupied territories, first of all in Gaza,” Ashrawi continued, “and it does not bode well for the talks if the Palestinian negotiators are to become the targets of Israeli violence.”

The other death was that of Rayed Shana, 19, according to local hospital officials. The army said a preliminary investigation showed that he was killed by Arab gunfire, not by the military, but it offered no explanation.

Among the casualties Thursday was an Israeli soldier wounded by a colleague when they opened fire on stone-throwing youths, according to a military spokesman.