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Accusations Fly as Israel Strikes Nablus After Settler Attacks
NABLUS, West Bank, July 12 (News Agencies) - After a Palestinian policeman was killed Thursday in Nablus in retaliation for injuries to Jewish settlers, the Palestinians accused Israel of a "dangerous escalation" in the fighting that has ripped through the region for almost 10 months, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accused Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority of "not keeping to its commitments to end violence and terrorist acts."
Sharon said during a one-day trip to Italy that Israel "would increase its efforts to respond" to Palestinian attacks, without elaborating.
Israel pounded the West Bank town of Nablus in retaliation for roadside ambushes that wounded four Jewish settlers in some of the worst violence to shake the month-old U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
Israel unleashed tank and machine-gun fire on Palestinian police posts in Nablus, killing Mohammad Fayad, a 22-year-old member of military intelligence. The attack came after the roadside ambush which set off revenge rampages by settlers in several West Bank areas.
"The Israeli government is responsible for this dangerous escalation and we demand all the international community, and especially the United States, to move very quickly to stop this dangerous situation," Arafat's aide Nabil Abu Rudeina said in Ramallah.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres Thursday dismissed speculation that the Israeli army was planning a massive attack on the Palestinian Authority.
Britain's Foreign Report said the Israeli military had submitted plans to send 30,000 troops into the Palestinian autonomous zones if there was another large-scale terror attack, with the aim of disarming Palestinian forces and ousting Arafat, but three Israeli ministers have categorically denied the existence of such a plan.
"Various proposals have been raised, but there has been no cabinet discussions," the dovish Peres told Israeli radio.
Outgoing U.S. ambassador Martin Indyk warned Israel not to trust Arafat, but said he was the only viable option for peace and ruled out mounting calls to topple him.
"You are more likely to get Hamas and Hezbollah as your partners than a more reasonable and reliable Palestinian leadership," Indyk said in a farewell speech, referring to the Palestinian and Lebanese Islamic resistance movements.
And Sharon called on the international community to turn up the pressure on Arafat as he arrived in Italy on Thursday.
Sharon, speaking aboard his plane, called for "greater international pressure so that Yasser Arafat takes real action against terrorism."
In Italy, Sharon had said he saw no threat of escalation in the Middle East and excluded the possibility of imminent war in the region.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army hit Nablus swiftly after settler Erez Shmulyan, 26, was shot in the head at close range by Palestinians disguised in Israeli army uniforms near the West Bank settlement of Har Barha, close to Nablus.
His wife and baby daughter, who were in the car with him, were lightly injured.
Another two Israelis were critically wounded late Thursday in a drive-by shooting near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron, Israeli public radio reported.
The shooting occurred after three Palestinians were wounded by Israeli soldiers' gunfire after clashes resulting from anti-Palestinian acts by Jewish settlers.
In revenge for the shooting, settlers stormed an Arab village near Nablus, beating up residents, pelting cars with stones and setting fire to olive trees. They launched similar attacks in the Hebron area, wounding around eight people with iron bars and sticks, and setting fire to houses and agricultural land, witnesses said.
Earlier Thursday, the Israeli army expressed regret over the killing of a Palestinian mother-of-two shot dead the previous day by Israeli troops while traveling in a taxi, adding that it was investigating the incident.
Thursday's violence followed a failed meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials overnight, with each accusing the other of violating the would-be truce, seen as a key step in getting an international peace plan up and running.
Israeli army radio said the U.S. CIA representative at the talks, led by Shin Beth security service chief Avi Dichter and Palestinian counterpart Tawfik Tirawi, admitted that the meeting had broken down in disagreement.
A number of joint security meetings have been held under U.S. auspices since the truce was agreed on June 13th. Thirty-one people, 20 Palestinians and 11 Israelis, have been killed in the four weeks since the truce went into effect.
Israel also came under further fire from the United Nations over its recent demolition of dozens of Palestinian homes, with spokesman Fred Eckhard quoting U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as saying the actions "only aggravate the already extremely tense situation in the occupied Palestinian territory."
The latest events dented hopes for a week of "absolute calm" which Israel insists on before moving ahead with the peace plan recommended by a commission chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.
Peres insisted Israel was still committed to the plan.
And Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said military force would not bring an end to the conflict, which erupted in late September and has now cost the lives of more than 640 people.
"Whoever thinks that solution will be found through military means simply does not understand the situation.
Israel's war of words with the United Nations escalated when an Israeli newspaper alleged U.N. peacekeepers allowed Hezbollah to kidnap three Israeli soldiers on the border in October after being bribed.
A U.N. official angrily denied the allegations in the Maariv daily.
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