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Sharon Says U.S. Backs Israeli Talks
Refusal
JERUSALEM, March 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned home Thursday from his first trip to the United States as Israel's leader said he won backing for his refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians under fire, while a top Palestinian official called for a broadening of the deadly six-month revolt.
"I found support for Israel and her right to defend her citizens," Sharon said, adding that the stalled negotiations with the Palestinians would only resume when calm is restored.
But violence flared in the Gaza Strip, with three Palestinians wounded in an Israeli bombardment of a refugee camp following a gunfight in the area, medical officials and witnesses said.
The Israeli army also said it had killed a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip overnight while he was trying to cross into Israel to plant a bomb.
"There will be no negotiations under pressure and violence," Sharon told a press conference at Ben Gurion airport on his return from the four-day trip, his first abroad since taking office two weeks ago at the helm of a broad-based government pledging to restore security.
"Those who take part in terror and their supporters will be dealt with as one must deal with terrorists, but with an effort to avoid an escalation," he said, adding that he would hold talks later with security officials to discuss the situation.
The hardline former general - once ostracized by the United States for his role in Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon and his Jewish settlement construction drive in the West Bank - on Wednesday described Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as the main obstacle to peace.
Sharon held talks with U.S. President George W. Bush and a host of U.S. administration and congressional officials as well as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on the seething Palestinian crisis, facing calls to ease the blockade on the territories that has devastated the Palestinian economy and thrown thousands out of work.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Amr, quoted by CNN, commenting on Sharon's targeting of blame, said, "The repeated accusation from Mr. Sharon has become his agenda and this ultimately will close the door before the chances of dealing with the current situation in a responsible way."
Amr's colleague in the Palestinian Authoritiy's Cabinet, Ziyad Abu Zayyad, said, "The truth is that the continuing occupation, the existence of the occupation and Israel's policies are responsible for the violence," adding that whatever opinion Sharon expressed during talks with Bush, "the truth will come to light."
Meanwhile, Marwan Barghouthi, the West Bank leader of Arafat's Fatah faction, vowed to escalate the uprising, or Intifada, to confront Sharon's crackdown.
"We want to broaden the popular participation in the Intifada to include more peaceful demonstrations as well as broadening the [armed] resistance," said Barghouthi, accused by Israel of being a prime instigator of the unrest.
An Israeli military official voiced concerns that Arafat will seek to use next week's Arab summit to "fan the flames" of Arab anger over the violence that has cost the lives of more than 440 people, most of them Palestinian.
Arafat returned to the Palestinian territories on Wednesday after a tour of Arab states in the run-up to the summit in Amman on March 27-28.
George Mitchell, the head of the international panel in the region to probe the bloodletting, in its second day in the region, cautioned that it did not have the power to solve the crisis.
The former U.S. senator and Northern Ireland peace mediator said after meeting Palestinian officials that the panel would submit a report that established "fairly, impartially and honestly the different responsibilities" for the violence.
But he added, "We don't have the power or the authority to solve all the problems."
Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the five-member panel must identify the cause of the unrest.
"Violence is only a symptom; you are charged with identifying the disease. As a long-time sufferer of the disease, please permit me to offer my humble suggestion that the disease you are looking for is called 'military occupation.'"
On Wednesday, the five-member group toured the Khan Younis refugee camp and several Palestinian towns, and saw firsthand Israeli bulldozers clearing trees from Palestinian land and Palestinian youths hurling stones and bottles at Israeli troops.
Mitchell and panel members then met with Arafat, who said the discussion covered "the details of how to protect the peace process." The group plans a meeting with Sharon on Sunday.
U.N. human rights investigators called Wednesday for international monitors to be deployed in the Palestinian territories, where they say Israel has used "excessive" force to quell protests.
And an Israeli human rights group also charged that Israeli law enforcement agencies had all but turned a blind eye to the killing of Palestinians during the Intifada by Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The violence occurs against the background of leniency and prolonged impotence of the Israeli law enforcement authorities," rights group B'Tselem said in a 52-page report entitled "Tacit Consent."
Of the 442 people killed during the Intifada, 362 have been Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs, 66 Israeli soldiers and civilians and one a German national.
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