Middle East violence puts strain on truce
( 2001-07-08 09:43 ) (7 )

The killing by Israel of a Palestinian boy near the Gaza-Egypt border and raging gun battles on Saturday further strained a US-brokered truce designed to end nine months of bloodshed.

Khalil Mughrabi, 11, became the 17th Palestinian killed since the adoption of a ceasefire brokered by US CIA Director George Tenet on June 13. Nine Israelis have been killed.

The boy was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as he played with several dozen other children near the border, witnesses and a Palestinian hospital official said.

The Israeli army said only that there had been clashes in the area throughout the day and it fired at Palestinians who shot at troops and threw petrol bombs and hand grenades.

In the divided West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian witnesses said they heard Palestinians fire at a Jewish settlement in the city's heart. The army said it fired back.

A five-year-old Palestinian was wounded by Israeli fire and a Palestinian woman was hurt when settlers attacked her, medical sources and witnesses said.

Some 400 settlers, some of the most militant in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, live among 120,000 Palestinians in Hebron.

In another West Bank incident near the village of Asira al-Shamaliya, not far from Nablus, the army said two soldiers were wounded when a bomb went off next to their car.

The violence raged a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned from Europe acknowledging disagreement with leaders there over his policies against Palestinians rebelling against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

MEETINGS FALL SHORT

His meetings in Germany and France appeared to fall short of his aim of increasing pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to call a halt to Palestinian violence.

"There may not be complete agreement, but it's totally clear there is understanding," he said after meeting French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin on Friday.

Jospin told Sharon that Israel's demand for a total end to violence before political moves were discussed might block the path to peace, an aide to the French prime minister said.

Sharon told France 2 television: "At this moment, Arafat may be passing up one of his last chances to make peace...If he does what's necessary for calm to return, he will be a partner...But as long as terrorism continues, he cannot be our partner."

A meeting on Friday between Israeli and Palestinian security officials in Tel Aviv ended without agreement on the start of a seven-day test truce intended to lead to a cooling-off period, confidence-building measures and a resumption of negotiations.

"We say that in accordance with the understanding...the period...ended on Wednesday," said the Palestinian head of general security in Gaza, Major-General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh.

But an Israeli defence spokesman said the United States had "completely accepted" the Israeli position that the countdown had yet to begin because of continuing violence.

At least 476 Palestinians, 121 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September after peace talks stalled.

Israeli diplomatic sources said US Secretary of State Colin Powell had agreed in a telephone call with Sharon after his European trip that continuing violence meant "conditions are not yet ripe" for advancing the peace blueprint.

HOSTAGE EFFORTS

At home Sharon has been able to answer criticism of efforts to get back three soldiers kidnapped by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas on the border by securing a promise from the United Nations to release a video shot after the incident.

UN undersecretary-general for peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said on Friday Israel would be shown the tape, whose existence the UN had acknowledged only a day earlier.

But he said the faces of Hizbollah guerrillas on the tape would be obscured because the peacekeepers could not deliver intelligence to either side.

However, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's office issued a statement on Saturday saying" "The Lebanese authorities regard the showing of this tape as a dangerous precedent and a transfer of information from inside Lebanese soil to the Israeli enemy, which represents a departure from the mission of the international forces in the south."

Hizbollah, which drove Israel to end its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000, continues to harry forces on the border in what Israel calls a proxy war promoted by Syria.

A week ago Israel attacked a Syrian radar station in Lebanon in retaliation for a Hizbollah strike against its troops.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the German weekly Der Spiegel in an interview that Sharon was "planning an even@extensive war because he cannot cope with a crisis in Israel".

In Damascus, visiting US Middle East envoy William Burns urged Syria to exercise maximum restraint after an Israeli strike on a Syrian military post in Lebanon in which three soldiers were wounded.

He said he had told Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara that Syrian-Israeli peace talks, broken off over 18 months ago, could revive if the confrontation on the Lebanese border halted.