JENIN,
Reoccupied West Bank, October 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A
13-year-old Palestinian child was killed by machine-gun fire from an
Israeli tank in the northern West Bank town of Jenin Thursday, October
24, as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns presented a
"roadmap" for peace to Israel’s leaders and a senior
Palestinian delegation.
Ahmed
Jafar died after Israeli tankfire hit him in the chest, Palestinian
medical sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
As
around 20 Israeli vehicles stormed the rubble-reduced Jenin refuge camp,
a group of Palestinian children pelted an Israeli armored column with
stones, after which Israeli tanks opened fire, killing Ahmed.
There
were no other injuries in the shooting, the Palestinian sources told
AFP, adding that the curfew in the reoccupied town was not in place.
With
the murder of 13-year-old Ahmed, the Palestinian death toll during two
years of Intifada against Israeli occupation has reached 1,934,
according to AFP.
On
the diplomatic front meanwhile, Burns held an early meeting with Israeli
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and then went to Jericho - the
only West Bank town not occupied by Israel for religious reasons - for
talks with a senior Palestinian delegation.
He
was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later in the day to
discuss the peace "roadmap" developed in conjunction with the
United Nations, the European Union and Russia which should allow for an
independent Palestinian state side by side with Israel within three
years, said AFP.
Israel
has given the plan an extremely cool reception, saying it prefers to
stick to U.S. President George W. Bush's "vision" set out in a
June speech, which also foresees Palestinian statehood in three years
but with more conditions attached, including an end to elected
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's tenure of power.
Many
Israeli analysts believe that the latest roadmap is aimed more at making
a show of trying to calm the two-year Intifada or uprising against
Israeli occupation, while Washington's interest really lies in whipping
up regional support against Iraq.
Burns
is also trying to urge Israeli restraint in the face of Palestinian
retaliatory attacks - the latest of which killed at least 13 people,
mostly soldiers, in a bus blast Monday, October 21 - to avoid a new
flare-up of tensions.
The
Israeli Premier blasted the "road map" peace plan draft
presented to him in Washington last week, in his first public reference
to it, telling a group of American Jews Wednesday, October 23:
"It's not credible that Israel takes irreversible steps while the
other side only makes statements," reported the Israeli Ha’aretz
newspaper.
Sharon
and his aides say they will not accept any deviation from Bush’s June
24 speech.
Sharon
referred to the roadmap for the first time in public Wednesday during a
meeting with representatives from the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation
League, saying it had "problematic" aspects.
"We
have to stick to what was agreed in Washington regarding the Bush plan.
"It
is of utmost importance that any progress to each stage be conditioned
to the implementation of the previous stage."
Sharon
conditioned any progress to halting the Palestinain Intifada and any
kind of Palestinian resistance, adding that otherwise, "it will be
impossible to move toward a demilitarized state without final
borders" - his own version of a future Palestinain state.
"This
is just a draft and we will express our reservations on certain
points," an unidentified official from Sharon’s office told AFP,
describing Burns’ roadmap.
"There
is no question of the Israeli army making the least pullback [from
occupied Palestinian territories] as the plan sets out until the
Palestinian Authority decided to fight … [Islamic resistance
movements] Islamic Jihad and Hamas and we see some results on the
ground."
He
stressed that the timetable in the plan, for a Palestinian state without
fixed borders by next year, "doesn't appear realistic" even if
Palestinians halted resistance attacks.
The
Israeli official also voiced serious doubts about "the credibility
of proposed supervision of the implementation of the quartet plan."
"It
is difficult to leave it up to the European Union when E.U. officials
recently held contacts with Hamas and Islamic Jihad," he said.
Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who met Burns late Wednesday, stressed
that the plan was only an outline and that Israel would react by
December.
Israeli
government and defense officials are bitterly critical of the plan,
which calls for comprehensive political and security reforms in the
Palestinian Authority leading to a Palestinian state with temporary
borders by the end of 2003, and a final status agreement by the end of
2005, said AFP.
Sources
in Sharon’s office also have reservations about the inclusion of the
Saudi Arabian peace plan as an element in the roadmap.
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Sharon
claims roadmap plan has "problematic" aspects
|
The
Foreign Ministry is tilting toward accepting the plan, saying it is
based on "gradualism, stages, and performance tests," but in
the defense establishment there is stiff opposition to it because,
cllaim officials, it misses the point of Bush's speech - that Israel’s
security comes before all else.
The
six-page plan has been worked out by the Middle East quartet committee,
grouping the U.S., E.U., U.N., and Russia, and the Americans are now
gathering Israeli, Palestinian and other regional comments on it before
a final draft is approved by the quartet in December.
Among
other things, the plan calls for Israel to withdraw to pre-Intifada
lines, dismantle illegal settlements, and cease military offensives in
Palestinian Authority areas.
The
Palestinians are required to name a prime minister, reorganize their
security forces into a single entity, and to reinstate security
coordination and cooperation with Israel.
A
new security cooperation agreement is envisaged.
The
plan would put quartet supervisors in the territories to judge when the
sides have reached each stage, so they can move onto the next one.
The
official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan said in a letter to Arafat that the best way out of
the impasse would be to pursue the quartet's proposals.
While
refusing to comment directly on the roadmap, Palestinian Local
Government Minister Saeb Erekat, who led the Palestinian official
delegation to the meeting with Burns, said: "I can see this plan is
full of conditions."
He
stressed that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian
leadership would study it before giving any official reaction
