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Israel Retreats From Ceasefire Statement
JERUSALEM, April 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was set to arrive in the United States Monday, as fresh violence and squabbling over an Egyptian-Jordanian initiative to quell seven months of bloodshed dampened peace prospects.
The death toll in the Palestinian uprising hit 500 Monday after Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank and a blast killed a Palestinian laborer in the Gaza Strip.
Momentum for a ceasefire agreement between the two sides stalled amid finger-pointing between Israelis and Egyptians over Peres' Sunday visit to Cairo and Amman.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reacted incredulously Monday to Peres' comments that he had been incorrect about the Jewish state's agreement to a cessation of fighting and a resumption of peace negotiations after four weeks.
Mubarak had announced a ceasefire agreement following his Sunday morning meeting with Peres, although, at the time, Peres said points remained to be worked out.
But Peres was quoted late Sunday by Israeli army radio as saying Mubarak "had made a mistake" and that "no agreement on a ceasefire had been signed."
Mubarak struck back during a speech Monday before the Egyptian parliament.
"They [the Israelis] begged me to make the statement I made yesterday, on a ceasefire and a resumption of negotiations on the final status in a period of four weeks," Mubarak said.
Even so, the sides moved closer Sunday toward implementing the Egyptian-Jordanian bid to end the violence.
This entails a series of confidence-building measures, including a pullback of Israeli troops to their positions before the start of the fighting in late September, a freeze on settlement construction and renewed security cooperation between the two sides.
While the sides had been at an impasse over the issue of settlements and a starting point for peace talks, Peres had proposed steps Sunday to ease condition in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Palestinians there have lived under a grueling blockade for the bulk of the fighting.
Peres outlined the measures during his talks with Mubarak and then with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the Red Sea resort of Aqaba.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdel Ilah Khatib told AFP Peres' proposals had allowed "some movement but it is not enough.
"Peres informed the king that Israel will begin from today to take measures to reduce the restriction on the Palestinian territories, including the reopening of the Gaza airport," a royal spokesman said.
The measures outlined by Peres also call for "an increase in the number of permits allocated to Palestinian workers in Israel and an improvement of conditions for Palestinian fishermen," the spokesman said.
A Jordanian official added that Egypt and Jordan were weighing a response to Peres on the actual initiative.
In a telephone conversation with Abdullah before the king met Peres, Sharon said Israel would not negotiate before "a complete halt to terror", meaning any form of violent protest.
On Monday, Palestinians praised what they called Egyptian and Jordanian resistance to Israel's tactics, as Peres left for the United States to meet President George W. Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan .
During his U.S. trip, Peres will "stress the need for an end to Palestinian violence and terrorism," the Israeli foreign ministry said.
Meanwhile, the European Union's top diplomat, Javier Solana, arrived in Cairo for talks with Mubarak about the violence in the Palestinian territories, European diplomats said.
On the ground, the Palestinian territories continued to seethe.
Security officials complained of Israel's refusal to budge on lifting the closure after meetings in the West Bank Sunday.
"The [West Bank] meetings did not produce any concrete result," with the Israelis "not having made any proposal on lifting the blockade of towns," General Ribhi Arafat, West Bank liaison with the Israeli army told Voice of Palestinian radio.
Israeli soldiers shot dead overnight Adnan Awdeh, 32, who was said to be a former collaborator with Israel.
The report said he was killed after fleeing his home in Hibla, near Qalqilya, during a raid by Israeli coast guards.
Another Palestinian man was killed and one injured when an explosive charge blew up near the southern Gaza Strip Jewish settlement of Rafah Yam, the Israeli military said.
An explosive device had been placed beneath an Israeli-owned truck filled with Palestinian laborers, Israeli public radio reported.
And a man who died Sunday in a failed attack on a school bus carrying children from a Jewish settlement was a member of the armed wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, his brother said.
Hamas confirmed the attacker was a member of its organization on Monday.
The Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed branch, claimed responsibility for the attack and confirmed one of its members had been killed in the operation.
"Jamal Nasser, a student at Najah University, rammed a car loaded with 240 kilograms of explosive charges into a bus carrying settlers and soldiers, killing himself in the blast." it said.
A statement also said the explosion was taped by Hamas and that "the Zionist enemy has not reported its casualties." It added that Nasser and his group had earlier attacked the Shavei Shomron settlement with automatic weapons "hitting several members of the thirteen Zionist families [living there] and forcing them to flee."
Nasser carried out the attack at a crossroads in Deir Sharaf near the settlements of Homesh and Shavei Shomron, north of the autonomous Palestinian town of Nablus.
The explosion had only caused minor damage to the armored school bus, injuring no one.
Rashid Nasser said his brother "left a note saying he intended to launch an [retaliatory operation] to avenge the martyrs and to denounce the inaction of Arab leaders, whom he reproached for not sending their soldiers to aid the Palestinians" in their uprising against Israel.
Meanwhile, armed Palestinian groups, mostly offshoots of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, continued their defiance of the Palestinian Authority's order Saturday night that they disband and rejoin the Palestinian security forces.
Several hundred members of these bands, known as Committees For Popular Resistance, marched in protest in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Shouts abounded against security cooperation and peace negotiations with Israel.
Among the targets of the slogans were Mohammed Dahlan, chief of preventive security in the Gaza Strip, and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.
Demonstrators chanted: "The blood of the martyrs is not for sale" and "No to traitors and treason, yes to the armed struggle."
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