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Already Shaky Truce Approaches Israeli Imposed Deadline
JERUSALEM, Oct 1
(IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Almost a dozen Palestinians were killed in a weekend of rallies that also left more than 200, mostly young people, suffering from bullet wounds, as a car bomb exploded in Jerusalem Monday without causing injuries but undermining an already shaky truce, news agencies reported.
The large bomb packed with assault rifle bullets went off near an industrial and out-of-town shopping zone in west Jerusalem, blowing apart the booby-trapped car and setting several other vehicles ablaze, police said in an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report.
The explosion injured nobody, police said.
The blast was the first such attack in Israel since Arafat declared a ceasefire on September 18th, promising to try to rein in attacks on Israeli targets.
The bombing was claimed in a statement sent to Qatar's Al-Jazeera television channel by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian resistance group seeking to liberate Palestine from an illegally occupying Israel.
In a bid to build upon the fragile peace initiative urged by Washington as it builds a worldwide anti-terror coalition, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres Sunday to discuss implementing internationally backed plans to end the violence.
Erakat described the meeting as "difficult," saying it had not even touched on the issue of a second Peres-Arafat meeting, which was the main purpose of the session.
He reminded Peres that the Israeli army had killed 19 Palestinians since Peres and Arafat reached the truce-consolidating deal on September 26th.
Erakat also charged that Israel had maintained its blockade on Palestinian towns despite pledges to ease the stranglehold that makes daily life for Palestinians intolerable.
Despite Israel's failure to fulfill its side of the agreement and continued aggression against the Palestinians, the Israeli security cabinet met Saturday night to unilaterally "give Arafat 48 hours to make good on promises to start arresting wanted hardliners and curbing the violence."
The foreign ministry said that deadline was due to expire at midday (7 a.m. EST) Tuesday; it was pushed back due to the observation of Jewish holidays.
Palestinian officials question Israel's intentions to hold up the agreement, claiming that one of three men shot dead by Israeli forces Sunday was a security official who was trying to prevent clashes between stone-throwing Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Hebron.
Senior Palestinian security officials in Gaza told AFP they would not arrest resistance members as long as Israeli forces continued their heavy-handed response to adolescent stone throwers.
The latest uprising against illegal Israeli occupation has claimed the lives of more than 800 people - the vast majority being Palestinians, of whom the majority are children and teenagers - due to excessive Israeli violence condemned by the international community, including the U.S. - Israel's staunchest ally.
Another 35,000 Palestinians have been injured, 27% of whom are children under the age of 18. The youngest was a 4-month-old baby shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.
As tensions flared, several thousand Arabs in the north of the Jewish state demonstrated to mark the killing by Israeli police of 13 of their brethren at the start of the Intifada last year.
They carried pictures of the victims and Palestinian flags, chanting, "Israel, we won't forget and we won't forgive."
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