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Arafat Says Total Calm Began As Violence Erupts
JERUSALEM, June 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The initial period of a week of total calm in the Middle East proposed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell "began Wednesday," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Saturday in Gaza.
Arafat, on his return here from Lisbon, also accused the Israeli army and settlers acting under its protection of continuing "their aggression against the Palestinian people."
Israel and the Palestinians Thursday accepted a preliminary timetable towards re-launching negotiations proposed by Powell.
The timetable sets out an initial period of one week of no violence to be followed by a six-week cooling-off period and then several months of confidence building measures aimed at bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to the peace table.
Prospects for peace in the Middle East looked bleak with a return to violence Friday that seemed to be a direct result of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's failing Middle East tour.
Earlier on Thursday, Powell had appeared to back a Palestinian proposal for independent observers to monitor the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire, BBC online reported.
Speaking after talks in the West Bank city of Ramallah with Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, Powell said: "There will be a need for monitors, observers, to see what is happening on the ground, and make an independent observation of what has happened".
Palestinians have been pushing for such a force since the outbreak of violence nine months ago, but Israel opposes any significant foreign presence. But a White House spokesman in Washington later denied that Powell was embracing the Palestinian proposal, the BBC online service added.
Powell's retreating stance, which came as a blow to Palestinians' last hopes for an implementation of the Mitchell report, prompted Friday more resistant activism in the Lebanese Shebaa Farms area that is occupied by Israel, which - in turn - prompted Israeli warnings against Syria, news agencies reported.
Israeli positions in the Lebanese farms' area, lying at the junction of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, came under attack from Lebanese Hezbollah activists. One soldier was wounded, according to a military source, the French News Agency, AFP, reported.
Israel responded with artillery fire and sent warplanes to bomb positions on a hill in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese police confirmed that Israeli artillery responded with more than 100 rounds of heavy caliber munitions to more than 30 Hezbollah mortar shells, AFP added.
It was the first Hezbollah attack on Israeli positions in the Shebaa Farms since May 14.
An advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Avi Pazner, pointed the finger of blame at Syria.
Meanwhile, at the Israeli-controlled crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, an Egyptian policeman was shot dead Friday by an Israeli bullet, becoming the first fatality in Egypt in nine months of Israeli-Palestinian violence, AFP reported.
Egyptian officials and Palestinian witnesses said the policeman was hit as Israeli troops were firing on Palestinian demonstrators on the Gaza Strip side of the border town.
According to Western sources, the death brought to 628 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the resistant Palestinian 'Intifada', or uprising, against Israeli occupation. The dead include 491 Palestinians, 117 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis, six Europeans and an Egyptian.
Meanwhile, Palestinian radio announced that five people were wounded by shrapnel from a shell fired by Israeli forces at houses in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis, BBC online reported.
On the diplomatic front, Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, and Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, held talks late Friday at the Portuguese prime minister's residence in Lisbon, a diplomatic source said, according to AFP.
Earlier, Arafat met with Portuguese Foreign Minister, Jaime Gama, to discuss developments in the Middle East, where violence between the occupying Israeli army and resistant Palestinians has dragged on since last September.
Also late Friday, Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Guterres, underlined that "it is indispensable to talk and apply the Mitchell plan entirely, including the very important question of freezing settlement building".
Arafat and Peres will speak to delegates of the Socialist conference early Saturday and they are due to hold one-to-one talks again later in the day.
Conference delegates are expected to pass a resolution expressing their wishes that Israeli-Palestinian dialogue be strengthened by the Peres-Arafat conclave on the sidelines of the Socialist meeting, which began Friday.
The draft text also welcomes the findings of the Mitchell Commission, headed by former U.S. senator, George Mitchell, which foresees an increase in confidence-building measures on both sides and a freeze on the construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories.
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