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Mitchell Report On Intifada Handed Over
JERUSALEM, May 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A preliminary report by the U.S.-led Mitchell Commission on the seven months of violence in the Middle East was handed over to Israelis and Palestinians Friday, as the two sides once again traded mortar and tank fire in the Gaza Strip.
Copies of the report, which aims at establishing the causes of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, were delivered in Tel Aviv and Ramallah to Israeli minister without portfolio Danny Naveh and Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.
According to Israeli public radio, the report "virulently criticizes" Israel's policy of building Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, and calls for "a complete halt to all settlement activities, including natural growth."
The radio was quoting "diplomatic sources in Jerusalem" on the report, which had not yet been made public.
"Natural growth" has been used by all past Israeli governments, even those opposed to the creation of new settlements, to justify the expansion of existing ones.
Birth rates are high among the 200,000 Jews living in some 150 settlements scattered over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Mitchell report also calls on the Israeli army to "consider withdrawing its troops to where they were before the fighting erupted," on September 28th, the start of the Intidada.
Officials from the two sides are now expected to study the findings and deliver their comments in the coming weeks, after which the commission - headed by former U.S. senator and Northern Ireland peace broker George Mitchell - will draw up a definitive report.
Shortly before the reports were handed over, two mortar bombs were fired by Palestinians on the Kfar Aza kibbutz just outside the Gaza Strip, prompting the Israeli army to attack with four tank shells directed at a Palestinian police post near Beit Hanun.
The Palestinian attack, which caused no injuries, was the first onto Israeli territory since April 16th, when mortars were fired on the nearby town of Sderot. It came despite orders from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last Saturday for mortar attacks to stop.
After the Sderot attack, Israeli tanks moved into Beit Hanun, which is in an area under Palestinian security control, but withdrew after a public rebuke from the U.S. administration.
Earlier Friday, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Morag and Atzmona settlements in the Gush Katif bloc in the south of the Gaza Strip to reassure residents about their security.
"The fight against terrorism is a long haul," Israel radio quoted him as saying.
Later Friday in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian man in the head with a live round. According to Palestinian medical sources, Hisham al-Mamluk, 18, was hit during a confrontation between Palestinian demonstrators and soldiers at the Karni crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
In other unrest in the West Bank, eight Palestinians were injured with live and rubber-coated metal bullets during a clash with Israeli troops in Ramallah, and in Bethlehem, 500 supporters of the resistance group Islamic Jihad staged a rally to denounce the latest Jordanian-Egyptian peace initiative.
The Mitchell commission was set up at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit in Egypt last October in the hope that it would defuse tensions between the two sides, and Israeli political sources said its preliminary findings were deliberately even-handed.
The report said the Intifada was not triggered by Sharon's visit, but added that it had come at a very "inappropriate moment".
According to the same sources, the commission also said it was opposed to sending an international observer force to the Palestinian territories, since such a deployment "is only possible with consent from both parties".
The report also drafts what it sees as the necessary stages before reaching a comprehensive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians said the radio.
It listed those stages as "an immediate and unconditional halt to the violence, a significant period of calm, the application of existing agreements and the resumption of negotiations."
Israeli officials said there would be relief if - as expected - the commission refrained from accepting the Palestinians' key demand for the establishment of an international force to protect the Palestinians, though they feared some kind of observer corps could still be suggested.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres finished his visit to the United States, where, on Thursday, he held talks with President George W. Bush over the Jordanian-Egyptian plans for a resumption of negotiations after a series of confidence-building measures.
After the meeting Peres said he was "leaving ... reassured and with the sense that we can move ahead in the direction of peace to achieve a complete peace."
Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa in Cairo to discuss the situation in the Middle East. Arafat is also expected Saturday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks with Egyptian President Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II on the peace plan.
Arafat had just returned from a conference of 18 non-aligned nation ministers in South Africa.
"The ministers expressed their support ... for the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative," the ministers from the Non-Aligned Movement said in a communiqué after the meeting on Thursday, where Arafat also expressed his support for the plan.
The communiqué reiterated "the traditional support of the movement for the Palestinian people and the realisation of their inalienable rights, including the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital".
French President Jacques Chirac and Bahrain's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa also voiced their support for the plan Friday.
"We hope to work together to find a fair and balanced solution which first envisions a de-escalation, a return to the negotiating table," Chirac told reporters after a meeting with Sheikh Hamad.
"From this perspective, we think that the joint Egyptian-Jordanian plan is a good first step," he said.
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