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More Bloodshed in the Middle East
JERUSALEM, June 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Palestinian and an Israeli were shot dead Wednesday as a brittle one week-old Middle East ceasefire edged closer to collapse despite pledges from both sides to try to end the bloodshed.
Concern about the state of affairs was highlighted by a round of telephone diplomacy and the announcement that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will travel to the region next week in a bid to shore up the ceasefire.
U.S. President George W. Bush spoke by telephone with Israeli ultra-right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and was later expected to call Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, a White House spokesman said.
The Israelis and Palestinians bitterly accused each other of failing to stick to the truce, as Sharon came under mounting pressure from Israeli militants to follow up on nine-months of Israeli excessive use of force against Palestinian protesters who are resisting Israeli occupation of Muslim land.
Sharon's security cabinet announced, after a three-hour meeting that Israel would hold to the agreement, but Arafat angrily denounced the Israelis as liars and said they had not stopped their "aggression."
A Palestinian man was killed near a military checkpoint outside the West Bank town of Ramallah after Israeli troops opened fire on him because of what army radio said was his "suspicious" behavior."
At around the same time, a Jewish civilian occupier was gunned down and fatally wounded near the West Bank settlement of Homesh, sources of the Israeli civilian occupiers, known as settlers, claimed.
The killings put the death toll at six Palestinians and four Israelis since the truce, brokered by CIA chief George Tenet, came into effect last Wednesday.
Sharon has not been expected to renounce the deal ahead of talks in Washington next week with Bush, but the security occupation cabinet warned that Israel reserved the right to strike back against Palestinian attacks.
"The prime minister stated ... that Israel has the right to defend itself, and outlined that Israel will take all necessary steps to prevent attacks against its citizens and soldiers," spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush also planned to speak with Arafat Wednesday.
His message will be "that it's important for all parties to adhere to the ceasefire, to embrace the recommendations of the Mitchell committee so that peace can be achieved in the region and confidence-building measures can be taken," Fleischer said.
"The president has asked the secretary to go to the Middle East to help secure efforts to preserve the ceasefire and to build upon it," Fleischer said.
Powell will be pressing both Israel and the Palestinians "to build to a greater peace in the Middle East and try to get all the parties to continue to do their part to secure the Mitchell committee recommendations," he said, referring to the panel led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "What we're looking for the parties to bring to the table, and that's a renewed effort, a redoubled effort, an even stronger effort to stop the violence."
"Good faith, sustained efforts are going to be necessary to stop the violence completely and to establish the foundation to get on with those Mitchell committee recommendations," he said.
Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns will travel to the region in the next few days to meet with the parties, Boucher said.
Mubarak, in his conversation with Sharon, underscored the need for Israel to respect the ceasefire, the official MENA news agency reported.
He also reiterated the "need to apply what has been agreed regarding security arrangements and underlined the link between those arrangements and political steps stipulated by the Mitchell report."
Arafat, returning to the West Bank after talks in Egypt with Mubarak, accused Israel of trying to manipulate public opinion and failing to take the required steps to implement the deal.
"The Israeli ceasefire is a lie. They did not stop their aggression," Arafat said in Ramallah.
"Their ceasefire is only an attempt to deceive world public opinion. They are still firing from tanks and international banned weapons, and the settlers are committing crimes under army protection," he said.
Israeli radio earlier cited settler leaders, known to the Palestinians as "squatter," as warning that they would not be able to control the rage of extremist and hardliners indefinitely, and that many were itching to carry out vigilante attacks in retaliation against the Palestinians.
Israeli and Palestinian security officials held one of two meetings Wednesday night in a bid to keep the ceasefire on the rails, including talks on ending the Israeli blockade around the Palestinian territories.
They were also to discuss technical questions concerning the ceasefire in the meetings.
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