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Israel Says "Restraint" Policy Under Review As Settler Killings Shake Truce
JERUSALEM, June 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel warned Tuesday it would review what it calls "policy of restraint" towards the Palestinians following one of the worst days of Middle East violence since a U.S.-brokered ceasefire came into effect last week.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the shaky truce was in danger of collapse if the Palestinians failed to halt attacks, while Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat vowed he would do all he could to restore calm after almost nine months of bloodshed.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held security talks with top ministers and security chiefs as he faced mounting calls from angry Israeli right-wingers to strike back after Palestinians gunned down two Jewish settlers on Monday.
He had warned after meeting U.S. Jewish leaders Monday that the bloodshed was creating an "unacceptable situation," and that he would not hold back indefinitely from launching attacks in retaliation.
The Israeli security cabinet is due to meet Wednesday to consider its commitment to the ceasefire that came into effect a week earlier after mediation by CIA chief George Tenet.
"I hope the cabinet will take a decision to change its policy to allow the army to act with all the necessary force to put an end to attacks," Interior Minister Eli Yishai said during a visit to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Peres, a relatively less hawkish politician in the right-wing dominated government, told a meeting with European ambassadors to Israel that the truce was at risk of collapse, with more than 50 Palestinian violations since Wednesday.
"The situation is very serious and I think all the parties have to make an effort, particularly the Palestinians, to save the ceasefire from falling apart," Peres told reporters.
But public radio suggested that Sharon was likely to refrain from retaliatory action at least until he goes to Washington next week to meet President George W. Bush for the second time since taking office in March.
And Israel's army intelligence chief Amos Malka warned Tuesday that there could be more Palestinian attacks against Israelis despite the week-old ceasefire which has already been frayed by a string of killings.
Malka told a closed-door meeting of parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee that a lull in the violence was temporary and forecast a future escalation by the Palestinians, Israeli public television said.
But left-wing opposition leader Yossi Sarid of the Meretz party called on the government to give the ceasefire another chance and suggested that Israel allow the deployment of international observers, a constant Palestinian demand.
In Madrid, Arafat insisted the Palestinians would act to restore calm but reiterated calls for international observers to be sent to the region as soon as possible.
"We will do all that we can to continue along the path of observing the ceasefire," he said at a joint press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
Arafat arrived in Cairo Tuesday night for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the situation, Mubarak's office said.
Arafat will meet the Mubarak on Wednesday morning at the Mediterranean resort of Burg al-Arab, west of Alexandria, the source added.
Since the ceasefire, three Israelis and five Palestinians have been killed, bringing the total death toll in nine months of fighting to 617, most of them Palestinians.
Mourners on both sides buried the latest victims of the unrest: a settler, an Israeli teenage girl who became the 21st victim of the June 1 suicide bomb blast at a beachside Tel Aviv nightclub, and a Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip.
And Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs remained bitterly at odds after a meeting Monday night on enforcing the ceasefire, each accusing the other of truce violations.
"It was a difficult meeting that ended without achieving any progress," Amin al-Hindi, the head of Palestinian intelligence, said. "It was overshadowed by the events of the last two days."
Their next meeting is to be held Wednesday, a deadline contained in the Tenet truce for fixing a timetable for Israel to lift its closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip that has devastated the Palestinian economy.
Sharon, who on Sunday blocked Peres from holding a three-way meeting with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Arafat, said the international community had to push the Palestinians to stop the attacks.
But he also said he would not "heed war cries" from right-wingers and settlers to give up on the truce following the killing of the two settlers.
In an apparent revenge attack, dozens of Jewish settlers stormed through the Palestinian village of Madama in the northern West Bank overnight, torched two cars, uprooted dozens of trees and hurled stones at houses, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, settlers occupied a hill overlooking a road in the West Bank in protest over recent Palestinian attacks, pitching a tent on the hill near the settlement of Maale Ephraim and demanded that the Israeli army set up a permanent post there.
The Israeli army also imposed a curfew on two Arab villages between Nablus and Tulkarem to the east, near the area where the two deadly attacks occurred. The army also blocked several roads around Tulkarem.
In the flashpoint town of Hebron in the southern West Bank, settlers blocked a road leading north for several hours and staged a protest prayer there, witnesses said.
In violence Tuesday, the army said five mortar bombs were fired at the industrial zone near the Neve Dekalim settlement in the southern Gaza Strip, causing no injuries.
Also on Tuesday in Gaza, four Palestinian boys, aged between 12 and 16, were seriously wounded by live Israeli army gunfire after they had thrown rocks at Israeli soldiers near Khan Yunis, witnesses and hospital officials said.
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