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Palestine Halts Contacts With Israel As Sharon Looses Credibility At Home
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Palestinian raises his hands as he looks at the damage caused to his
house by Israeli troops
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, March 2 (News Agencies) - Contacts between the Palestinian Authority
and Israel remained suspended on Saturday after the Israeli occupation army
pursued its bloody crackdown on two Palestinian refugee camps to growing
international concern, news agencies reported.
The
Palestinian Authority announced the suspension late on Friday in response to
incursions by the Israeli army inside the Balata and Jenin camps, which have
left a total of 19 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers dead since they began
last week. Medical sources said Saturday Israeli soldiers had shot and killed
one Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip overnight, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"There
will be no contacts, neither security nor political ones as long as the
destructive Israeli aggression continues against our camps," Palestinian
official Ahmad Abdelrahman told AFP on Friday.
He
added that there were "no security or political contacts with the
government" of hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "which
invades our camps and cities and imposes a blockade, killing our children."
The
incursions are the first by the Israeli army into the camps since the beginning
of the 17-month-old Palestinian Intifada (uprising) and have prompted a chorus
of international concern.
Sweden
on Friday blamed Israel for a "terrifying" escalation of violence in
the Middle East and urged the Israeli government to withdraw immediately from
West Bank refugee camps.
In
a less forceful statement, late on Friday, the United States repeated its call
on Israel to use "utmost restraint" and protect civilians during the
crackdown.
"We
are in touch with the Israeli government to urge that utmost restraint be
exercised in order to avoid harm to the civilian population," U.S. State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "We believe it's extremely
important that every possible effort be made."
The
intifada has now left 1,309 people dead, including more than 1,000 Palestinians
(mostly children and teenagers).
In
Balata, a bastion of the increasingly active Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,
Palestinian houses were destroyed on Friday by the Israeli troops. Israel has
not said how long the incursions will last, but has hinted that they would drag
on.
Since
Tuesday night, Israeli occupation forces have entered several Palestinian-ruled
areas in and around Deir El-Balah in the central Gaza Strip and imposed a
curfew, while also closing the main road.
U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan called on the Israelis to withdraw from the camps
and urged both sides to take action to avoid civilian casualties.
Palestinian
officials accused Sharon of trying to torpedo a Saudi peace initiative which
would trade Arab recognition of Israel for a pullout by Israel of all the
territories it occupied after the 1967 Middle East war.
The
proposals, intended to be put to the Arab summit in Beirut at the end of this
month, have been generally welcomed, though with some reservations from Egypt
and the United States.
Meanwhile,
Sharon is facing mounting pressure from abroad to choose peace talks over
military action while he watches his political support erode at home for his
failure to improve security, reported AFP.
However,
Palestinian analysts doubted Sharon would be forced to change course under U.S.
pressure and clung instead to the hope that Israelis would eventually abandon
him and his hardline policies.
Israeli
analyst Joseph Alpher said "all of these escalations make sense
tactically" but he wondered whether they were "capable of winning the
military conflict or alternatively bringing about a renewed peace process."
On
the Palestinian side the military operations are seen as Sharon's de facto
rejection of a Saudi peace initiative.
"This
is (Sharon's) response to the Saudi initiative," said Mustafa Barghuti, a
prominent independent Palestinian commentator. "The man doesn't want to
give up any part of the occupied territories."
In
an interview with Thursday's edition of the Washington Times, Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak expressed doubts the Saudi plan would work because the Israelis
did not appear ready for a full withdrawal.
The
United States, where Mubarak was due to begin a visit on Saturday, was also not
insisting on a full withdrawal.
U.S.
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice also repeated U.S. reservations over
insisting on the pre-1967 borders proposed in the Saudi initiative, in an
interview with Egypt's al-Akhbar satellite station.
The
United States has welcomed Riyadh's offer, and dispatched its top Middle East
diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns, to
Saudi Arabia on Thursday to explore the proposal with Prince Abdullah.
Palestinian
analyst Ghassan al-Khatib doubted the United States and other powers could put
enough pressure on Sharon to accept the initiative because it flies in the face
of his government's ideological stand to keep biblical lands.
Khatib
said the Palestinians can only hope that Sharon continues to suffer an erosion
in Israeli public support for his government.
A
poll published Friday showed that Israelis are continuing to lose faith in
Sharon, with an absolute majority dissatisfied with his performance and 73
percent considering he has failed to keep his promises, particularly to restore
security, reported AFP.
Meanwhile,
Palestinian president Yasser Arafat appealed from the West Bank town of Ramallah
on Friday for rapid international action "before the region explodes
through these Israeli crimes."
In
continuous aggression, the Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man and
seriously wounded another in the northern Gaza Strip overnight, medical sources
said Saturday.
Khalil
Salman al-Jmassie, 28, who was shot in the abdomen and chest around 10:30 pm
(2030 GMT) on Friday, bled to death after Israeli troops prevented an ambulance
from reaching him in a rural area east of Beit Hanoun, they said.
Another
man who with him was seriously wounded and lost a lot of blood, the medical
sources said.
They
gave no details about the circumstances of the shooting.
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