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Thursday, August 8, 2002 - Web posted at 9:10:59 am GMT Israel and Palestinians discuss easing clampdownJERUSALEM, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs held talks on ways to ease Israel's military clampdown in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but Palestinian officials said on Thursday the meeting had ended in failure. "The Israeli-Palestinian meeting has failed to reach any results as the Israelis changed the proposal of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Bethlehem," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters. The Palestinian cabinet had given preliminary approval on Wednesday to Israel's proposal to ease its military clampdown imposed after a series of suicide attacks. Under the proposal, Israel would redeploy its troops and ease conditions in the Gaza Strip before pulling its forces out of West Bank cities once violence ebbed and the Palestinian security forces took control and reined in militants. But Arafat's security adviser Mohammad Dahlan said the Israelis had gone back on their word at the talks. "The meeting was a failure because the Israelis went back on their word in the meeting," Dahlan said. What (Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer) said was changed at the meeting." The talks had been seen as a trial gesture to restore security cooperation. Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh, who frequently addresses security issues for the government, said on Army Radio that "to talk of crisis is exaggerated. We are starting from positions so far apart that it's hardly to be expected that we will reach agreement in a first meeting." He said Palestinians "are adamant" that Israeli troops withdraw from Ramallah, where the West Bank headquarters of the Palestinian Authority are based. Israel was willing to include another West Bank town which it felt was less problematic from a security point of view, Sneh said. PALESTINIANS TO MEET U.S. OFFICIALS In Washington, a delegation of Palestinian ministers arrived for two days of talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell and other U.S. officials. It will be the highest level meeting between the two sides since President George W. Bush called in June for the removal of Arafat as Palestinian president. Arafat's top negotiator Saeb Erekat, who will meet Powell on Thursday, told reporters the only alternative to the Palestinian leader was chaos. "We all know that the alternative to Arafat is chaos, ladies and gentlemen, Palestinian militants spread in each neighbourhood, maybe having civil strife ... and competing to send more suicide bombers to Israel." He implicitly accused the United States of playing into the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is seen by many Palestinians as intent on destroying Arafat's authority. The pall of violence still hung heavily over the Middle East. Five Palestinian militants and a policeman were killed on Wednesday by Israeli gunfire, and a leader of the Islamic group Hamas, responsible for a number of deadly suicide bombings, urged the assassination of Sharon. A spokeswoman at Ben-Eliezer's office said Israeli military and Shin Bet internal security officials had met their Palestinian counterparts late on Wednesday. She said Ben-Eliezer, who held the first senior-level meeting with Palestinian officials in months on Monday night, did not attend the talks with Dahlan and three security chiefs. Army radio said Avi Dichter, the head of Shin Bet, and Major-General Giora Eiland were the main Israeli participants. U.S. EXPECTED TO PRESS DEMANDS FOR REFORMS The United States is expected to press demands at Thursday's talks in Washington for greater efforts to crack down on Palestinian militants and for political reforms. Erekat said the Palestinian Authority had already been reforming when Bush asked it to and that Palestinians were witnessing "deform" all around them because of Israel's military campaign and restrictions on their movements. "Today 3.3 million people are living in the biggest prison in history called the West Bank and Gaza," Erekat said, adding that half of Palestinian children faced malnutrition. Israel says the restrictions on Palestinians and its military actions are necessary to stop Palestinian suicide bombings that have killed many civilians inside Israel. Israeli forces killed four Palestinian militants in an exchange of fire in the West Bank city of Tulkarm on Wednesday. An Israeli sniper also shot dead a leading Hamas militant, Hussam Hamdan, and troops killed a Palestinian policeman during a raid in northern Gaza. A Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, vowed revenge for the death of Hamdan, a 27-year-old member of the group's military wing. "I demand and urge the military apparatus of Hamas to target...Sharon personally and to target his house and his son," Rantissi told Reuters. The organisation is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Hamdan had escaped two earlier Israeli attempts on his life. The armed wing of Hamas, already incensed by the death of one of its leaders in an Israeli air strike last month, also vowed more attacks to avenge the "blood of martyrs". At least 1,489 Palestinians and 585 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation in September 2000 after peace talks deadlocked. Nampa-Reuters |
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