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Sharon Prepares To Take Office Facing Mounting Attacks
JERUSALEM, March 5 (News Agencies) - Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon was putting the finishing touches to his right-left coalition government on Monday as Israel boosted security along the border with the West Bank to guard against more feared bomb attacks.
Security forces were concentrated along the so-called Green Line separating Israel from the West Bank and in the main towns and cities in a bid to prevent a repetition of Sunday's bombing which killed three Israelis.
Sharon, the 73-year-old hawkish former general who hopes to present his new government to parliament Wednesday, has vowed to restore security after five months of blazing Israeli-Palestinian violence.
"The situation is grave from an Israeli point of view, probably on the verge of an explosion," Israeli political analyst Chemi Shalev said. "There's a consensus both in the security establishment and in public opinion, and among most ministers in the government, that Israel needs to escalate its response to Palestinian terror."
On Monday, Sharon's Likud party won an additional four seats in parliament when he clinched the support of Nathan Sharansky's right-wing Russian immigrant party Israel B'Aliya, which will obtain the housing ministry and a vice-ministry.
Although former foreign minister David Levy's Gesher party and the National Religious Party announced Monday they had refused to join the national unity government, the Likud leader had already won the support of Barak's Labor party, the powerful ultra-Orthodox Shas, and the far-right Russian immigrant party Israel Beiteinu.
Sharon has now secured 68 of the Knesset's 120 seats, and can expect to boost the total to almost 90 if he succeeds in forging more agreements. Sharon is expected to have 28 ministers in his cabinet.
But the death toll mounted among Palestinians on Monday, with the discovery of the body of a man killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, while soldiers in the Gaza Strip injured another two Palestinians.
Israeli police chief Shlomo Aharonishki said security had been bolstered although the security services were not in possession of precise intelligence on planned attacks.
"We have carried out maximum deployment of our forces, using all the cadets undergoing training, calling on volunteers and asking for help from the army," he told army radio.
"The more police there are on the ground, the greater the deterrent effect and the more the population is reassured," he added, while warning that the 320-kilometer (200 mile) border could not be hermetically sealed.
A bomber blew himself up on Sunday in the coastal resort of Netanya, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Green Line, killing another three people and injuring more than 40.
It was the fourth attack in Israel since Sharon's thundering election defeat on February 6th over outgoing premier Ehud Barak, toppled after just 19 months in power over the deadly wave of violence and Israeli perceptions of far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians during peace talks.
Sharon pointed the finger at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, saying his forces were involved in such attacks.
The armed wing of the hardline Palestinian movement Hamas has vowed to greet Sharon with a series of attacks when he takes office, saying it has "more than 10 suicide bombers ready to strike the Zionist entity."
According to the BBC, On Monday, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told an Italian newspaper that the Palestinian people had no choice between fighting or dying, and described bomb attacks as legitimate self-defense on the part of a people whose land had been "stolen by force".
The European Union urged both sides to act at once to end the spiraling violence, appealing for them in a statement issued in Sweden to restore security cooperation.
It also urged the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships "to do their utmost to prevent terrorist acts and the growth of sentiments of revenge."
But Arafat said the Palestinians would continue their struggle until Palestinian flags were raised over Jerusalem.
"We will continue despite the starvation, the military closure and the extremely dangerous military escalation until we raise a Palestinian flag over the walls of Jerusalem, the mosques of Jerusalem and the churches of Jerusalem," he said after prayers in Gaza City for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
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