Mideast Diplomacy Shifts To Cairo

03/04/2001| IslamWeb

JERUSALEM (Islamweb & Agencies) - Middle East peace diplomacy shifts on Sunday to Cairo, where Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres are due to have separate talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Sources in Mubarak's office said it was unlikely Arafat would meet Peres, who is also due to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian crisis with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher.
Arafat, who regularly consults Mubarak, last met Peres in June at a Lisbon conference. But they failed to narrow a yawning gap over peace moves.
The latest diplomatic maneuvering came as intifadha confrontations continued in the West Bank and near Gaza, where the Israeli occupation army claimed late on Saturday that Palestinians fired a mortar at the Israeli collective farm, Kibbutz Nahal Oz.
An eight-year-old Palestinian girl was injured by gunfire during confrontations in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank city of Hebron, Al-Khalil and witnesses reported gunfire near the town of Bethlehem.
They said two Palestinian houses were damaged by Israeli gunfire that the Israeli army said followed a Palestinian assault on one of its patrols.
Meanwhile, Palestinians buried two activists killed on Friday after two days of confrontations that indicated a truce brokered by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet a month ago was no closer to realization. (Read photo caption below).
Thousands of Palestinians meanwhile marched through the West Bank town of Tulkarm to mourn Fawwaz Badran, a member of the Islamic militant group Hamas who died when his car exploded on Friday.
They fired into the air and urged Hamas's military wing to retaliate. Israel has not admitted to killing Badran, but last week reaffirmed a policy of launching strikes at those it held responsible for attacks against Israelis.
Israel Radio said Israel blamed him for two bomb attacks in the city of Netanya that killed at least nine Israelis.
More than 1,500 Hamas supporters at the funeral of Atef Tafish, 25, killed in the Gaza Strip after throwing a hand grenade at Israeli occupation soldiers defusing a bomb, vowed to launch ''human explosions'' at Israel.
EACH SIDE ACCUSES OTHER
The Israelis and Palestinians accused one another of preventing a cease-fire taking hold that could lead to implementation of a limited peace plan proposed by a panel under former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Arafat met U.S. envoy David Satterfield, until recently U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and now deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs.
There was no immediate comment on the talks from Palestinian or U.S. embassy officials.
Arafat also spoke by telephone with Secretary of State Colin Powell and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat met U.S. envoy David Satterfield July 14, 2001 to discuss ways to end nine months of Israeli-Palestinian clashes. Meanwhile Palestinian mourners were burying two Resistance men killed July 13 after two days of intifadha confrontations. Palestinians carry the body of 27-year-old Hamas activist Fawas Badran during his funeral in the West Bank town of Tulkarem on July 14. (Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)