Militants opened fire on Wednesday in front of a building in the Balata refugee camp in West Bank, while Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei made a speech there.

The incident began as Qurei spoke to militants inside a sports club near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said, adding the militants inside the building fired in the air while some others from outside also fired shots at the building, which didn't penetrate the wall.

Later when Qurei was leaving with his entourage the refugee camp, an explosive device was detonated but he was not injured, said the witnesses.

Qurei, who was later host a weekly cabinet meeting in Nablus, denounced the shooting incident. "This is the kind of chaos we do not want. They (militants) want to impose their will but we will not bend to them."

Meanwhile, Israel has resumed an assassination policy against Islamic Jihad militants, officials said on Wednesday, underscoring the deterioration of a ceasefire with Palestinians.

"Targeted killings" of militants were shelved in February as part of a truce deal. However, resurgent violence has raised the specter of disruption to Israel's planned August withdrawal from Gaza and dimmed hopes for "road map" peace talks afterwards.

Word that the assassination policy had been dusted off came with Israeli confirmation of a failed missile strike on Tuesday when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were holding a frosty meeting.

"There was an attempt in Gaza to intercept an (Islamic Jihad) activist yesterday. It was unsuccessful," Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra said on Army Radio.

"An opportunity presented itself. Any means to neutralize the organization are relevant and possible."

Islamic Jihad has resumed mortar bomb and rocket salvoes against Jewish settlements in Gaza in what it calls retaliation for continued Israeli raids to capture wanted militants.

Khaled al-Batsh, a senior Islamic Jihad leader, warned of "terrible consequences" if Israel carried out assassinations.

"This decision is meant to escalate violence against our people. The calm would thereby end. We will not be dictated to by Israel," he told Reuters in Gaza.

At the Jerusalem meeting, Sharon complained to Abbas that the moderate Palestinian leader was doing little to rein in gunmen from whom he wrung a pledge of "calm" after he won election in January on a platform of non-violence and peace negotiations.

"The attempt yesterday to kill an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza signaled the resumption of the targeted killing policy," an Israeli security source told Reuters.

"The Palestinian Authority is doing nothing, so the only way to stop this is for us to launch a big operation of targeted killings and arrests of Islamic Jihad operatives."

(Xinhua News Agency, Chinadaily.com via agencies June 23, 2005)