On Wednesday, Avery's lawyer, Michael Sfard, asked the court to open a criminal investigation into the shooting. The court agreed to allow the case to proceed and gave the army 45 days to respond to Avery's request.

"Today marks a major turning point in the case," said Sfard, adding that the decision should send a message to soldiers that "there are still people who are asking the army for accountability."

Yuval Roitman, the Justice Ministry lawyer representing the army, said that a criminal investigation would not add anything to the 2003 army probe.

"The army field investigation that was conducted was very thorough and independent," he said at the hearing. "The army thinks it's the way to investigate events that occur in war time. One has to remember that the incident occurred in the middle of 2003 when there was a lot of fighting in Jenin and all over the West Bank."

Avery's disabilities from the shooting include impaired vision in his left eye and several missing teeth. Avery had bone grafts to reconstruct his upper left jaw bone, and his left eye also was damaged.

The original IDF internal probe, carried out immediately after the incident by Colonel Dan Hefetz, commander of the Menashe Brigade, concluded with the following surprising IDF statement, which was delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv:

"Mr. Avery's injury is an unfortunate incident. ISM activists knowingly endanger themselves by operating during curfew in combat situations, seeking clashes and frictions with IDF soldiers. No findings indicate that Mr. Avery was injured by IDF fire in any of the above-mentioned events."

In March 2005, a panel of three High Court justices instructed the judge advocate general (JAG) to interview, within 90 days, the witnesses to the incident in which Avery was injured in Jenin, and to reconsider the decision not to hold a criminal investigation.

"As a nation, the least we can do for a man who is sitting here with very serious wounds is to clarify what happened to him," Justice Edmund Levy said at the time.

The JAG, however, reiterated that such an investigation was unnecessary. Avery said in his petition that the IDF probe was unreliable and no substitute for a criminal investigation.

Troops also invaded two other exchange shops and took the money and the computers.

In Nablus, Israeli soldiers backed by more than 25 military vehicles, invaded the National Jordanian Bank and 5 money exchange shops. Local sources said that troops destroyed the contents of the bank and the shops and took all the money from the shops and took one of the workers as prisoner. The man was identified as 40-year-old Ghaleb Sweidan.

Abdullatif Nassif, the manager of the bank said they will sue the Israeli army for damaging the bank's property. He added that the damage is estimated aroun 500 thousand dollars.

roops also blew up the vault in one of these shops. The shop caught fire as a result of the explosion and all the furniture was on fire.

Palestinian fighters arrived at the scene after the army pulled out and stopped the fire.

Palestinian resistance fighters in Nablus clashed with the Israeli troops and blew up an explosive device in Al-Salam street, no injuries were reported.

In Tulkarem, the Israeli army took money from exchange shops and took three residents as prisoners, identified as Ibrahim and Qassem Haseeb and Kamal Thiab.

Meanwhile, in Ramallah, troops invaded Al-Ajouli money exchange shop and other shops and took all the money there.

The Israeli army declared that they invaded 24 money exchange shops in the West Bank claiming that these shops provide money for what they called, "terrorist groups".

In northern Gaza, soldiers killed three teenagers, whom Palestinians said were shepherds and the Israeli army said were tinkering with a rocket launcher. Two rockets were launched from the area earlier, damaging an Israeli apartment building.

The flare-up came after Egypt reported progress in efforts to free an Israeli soldier whose capture on June 25 in a cross-border raid from Gaza, sparked an Israeli offensive in which more than 215 Palestinians have been killed.

The ruling Islamic militant group Hamas welcomed a statement by the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators endorsing efforts to forge a Palestinian unity government that could help end the offensive and an international aid blockade.

In its statement issued on Wednesday, the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia said any unity government should "reflect" demands to recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and abide by peace deals.

The Quartet did not call on the Palestinian government to explicitly meet the three conditions, and also urged Israel to hand over withheld Palestinian tax revenues.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said the statement was a sign of progress and "we hope that this position will contribute to stopping all forms of political and economic siege."

ISRAEL REACTS CAUTIOUSLY

Israel reacted cautiously to the statement with some officials acknowledging it amounted to a weakening of an international campaign to isolate the Hamas-led government that came to power in March.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said it was critical to insist that Hamas meet the three conditions. "Giving legitimacy to the extremists that do not accept the three benchmarks can only undermine the position of the moderates."

Right-wing Israeli politicians said the Quartet position amounted to a defeat for Israel.

Silvan Shalom, a former foreign minister of the Likud party, accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of giving a green light to the policy change by agreeing to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate, while Hamas remained in power.

Olmert has seen his public standing plummet since a war with Hizbollah guerrillas ended on August14 with the group's leaders still in power and two Israeli soldiers, whose capture sparked the fighting, still not released.

A poll in Israel's biggest circulation daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, showed Olmert trailing two right-wing lawmakers and two of his own cabinet ministers, with a mere 7 percent saying he was best suited as prime minister.

American and Israeli officials have cast doubt on the prospect of Palestinians forming a unity government anytime soon, a reason why the United States was willing to soften its stance, a senior Israeli government source said.

The Americans "did not want to get into a fight with the Europeans over what they think is a dead horse."

Tensions between Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas flared up last week when a top intelligence official loyal to Abbas was gunned down in Gaza.

Tawfik Tirawi, a deputy intelligence commander, held a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, accusing Hamas of failing to stop the attack and arrest those responsible, warning this could bring more violence.

"If we do not quickly end this case and arrest all perpetrators...then we are heading toward destruction," Tirawi said. Hamas rejected the allegations as politically motivated.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)