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Mideast Talks End Without Accord, Israel Arrests Palestinian Minister
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| An Israeli soldier shoots Palestinian civilians
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JERUSALEM, March 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A meeting of high-level Israeli and Palestinian security officials ended Friday afternoon without a ceasefire agreement, as Israeli occupation army continued its aggressive actions against Palestinians, including the detention of a Palestinian minister, as well as wounding five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
"The meeting ended without an accord, but it was decided to hold another meeting Sunday," Israeli spokesman, Yarden Vatikai told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Top Israeli and Palestinian security officials met Friday afternoon to seek a ceasefire.
The meeting came following talks earlier Friday between U.S. peace envoy Anthony Zinni and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
A Palestinian official said Zinni would join the security meeting near the end.
Referring to Zinni's meeting with Arafat, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told journalists the U.S. envoy had "not put demands on the Palestinian side."
Erakat also reiterated Arafat's commitment to implement the Tenet ceasefire proposal and to the Mitchell peace plan "and linked to a political horizon."
He said "five issues concerning Tenet were presented," though he did not elaborate.
"The diktat, the omissions and the corrections of the Israeli side cannot be accepted," Erakat added, without explanation. "He (Zinni) has an Israeli and a Palestinian plan."
Erakat also said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "has to decide to treat Arafat as a president or as a prisoner."
That was a reference to the fact that Israel has kept Arafat cooped up in Ramallah since the beginning of December. Sharon said on Tuesday he would let Arafat attend next week's Arab summit in Beirut if the Palestinian President implemented a ceasefire.
In a serious Israeli escalation, Israeli police detained the Palestinian minister responsible for Jerusalem, Ziad Abu Ziad, in the eastern part of the holy city, a police spokesman told AFP Friday.
"Mr. Ziad was detained in the Ras El Amud neighborhood because he was not authorized to return to Jerusalem," said police spokesman Kofi Zirhan.
The minister "should be released in the coming hours, after questioning," the spokesman claimed.
Israeli police had previously arrested Abu Ziad on September 9 and the minister was driven to the West Bank and banned from returning to Jerusalem.
Israel, which occupied East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War and unilaterally annexed it in 1980, claims the whole city as its undivided capital. The international community, however, refuses to recognize the Jewish state's claim on the eastern Arab half of the city.
For most of the 18-month Palestinian intifada, Israeli authorities prevent Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from entering East Jerusalem without a permit.
East Jerusalem is home to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, where Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him) ascended to heaven.
Ziad Abu Ziad took his post after his predecessor Faisal al-Husseini died of a heart attack last May on a trip to Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Israeli occupation army continued its aggressive actions against Palestinians wounding five, two seriously, in tanks raiding near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early Friday afternoon, security and medical sources said.
Exchanges of gunfire erupted between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian resistance activists after two army tanks and a bulldozer stormed the Brazil refugee camp, near the border with Egypt, the security sources said.
About 10 houses were damaged during the raid, which ended a short time later, they said.
Among the wounded were a 50-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman, the medical sources said.
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