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Israel Rejects Palestinian Summit Call As Violence Erupts
JERUSALEM, April 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - More violence flared in the Palestinian territories Sunday as Israel rejected a call by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for a new Middle East summit to discuss the results of an investigation by a U.S.-led commission into the causes of a seven-month long Palestinan uprising against Israeli occupation.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres rejected a call by Arafat for a new summit at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to follow up on initial findings of the U.S.-led Mitchell Commission on the Intifada, or uprising, news agencies reported.
The Commission, headed by former U.S. senator and Northern Ireland peace-broker George Mitchell, handed over its preliminary findings on Friday to the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, who are to study it and respond with comments in the next two weeks.
Palestinians have reacted positively to parts of the findings that criticize Israel's settlement policy and the use of rubber-coated metal bullets.
Israel has rejected the link made in the report between the settlements and the continued violence, and government officials said they were satisfied with those parts of the report that call on the Palestinians to cease violence.
Palestinians started a wave of protests after Ariel Sharon encroached on al-Aqsa mosque, a holy Muslim site in East Jerusalem, on September 28, 2000.
Western news agencies say more than 500 Palestinians, most of them teenagers and children, have died since Israel started its clampdown on the Palestinian protests. Some Palestinian officials say the number of victims is much higher.
Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah II began talks in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about the Arab-Israeli crisis.
Prior to the meeting, a senior Jordanian official said the talks were expected to focus on implementing a joint bid to end the Israeli spiral of violence and to resume the Middle East talks.
The summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort follows one on Saturday between Mubarak and Arafat who called for a new summit, to be attended by the seven participants of the October 17th Sharm El Sheikh summit, to review the findings of the U.S.-led Mitchell Commission.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and Israeli and Palestinian leaders attended the October summit only weeks after the start of the Intifiada.
The Egyptian-Jordanian initiative calls for a total halt to Israel's settlement activities and urges the Israeli government to resume Middle East talks with the Palestinians from where they left off in October.
However, Sharon has objected to some of the measures, including a halt to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and has reportedly informed both Jordan and Egypt of his views.
The Israeli Haaretz daily said on its online edition Sunday that Sharon plans to boost funding for Jewish settlements, a chronically contentious issue in the Arab-Israeli negotiations, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by $375 million, antagonizing international calls for a freeze on settlement activity.
Haaretz said Sharon would submit his proposal to the Israeli cabinet on May 13th with the aim of strengthening security for the Jewish settlements.
Israeli cabinet sources told Haaretz Sharon made his decision weeks ago "in response to the Intifada," despite mounting international criticism of Israel's refusal to freeze settlement building.
Osama al-Baz, political advisor to the Egyptian president, told Egyptian TV on Saturday that Israeli settlement expansion policies were detrimental to the so-called Middle East peace process. They indicated no Israeli intention to carry out peace commitments, he said.
Some 200,000 settlers live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were captured by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and another 200,000 in east Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel during the same war.
Meanwhile, a member of Arafat's Fatah movement was killed on Sunday by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, as a bomb exploded in Tel Aviv.
The Palestinian Authority's main faction, Fatah, said it's member, Mohammed Abayat, 45, was killed by Israeli occupation troops who had entered zone "A" which agreements place under total Palestinian control.
Palestinian hospital officials said that 21 other Palestinians, including two children and a member of the Force 17, were wounded in the Israeli attack.
For its part, Israeli Army Radio said its troops had advanced on positions where Palestinian gunmen were firing near a road tunnel used mainly by Jewish settlers and occupation troops.
Earlier in the day, a bomb exploded in a Tel Aviv suburb on Sunday, lightly injuring a woman. Israeli sources said the blast happened near a bus station in Petah Tikva during the morning rush hour. Sources added that the bomb was placed in a rubbish bin.
Israel radio reported that four mortar bombs were fired from the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip on Sunday, hitting an area near the occupied Israeli town of Sderot, injuring no one.
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