Abbas issues settlement warning

07/01/2008| IslamWeb

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, says he intends to ask George Bush to curb Israel's settlements in the West Bank when the US president visits the Middle East this week.

Bush has called the expansion of Jewish settlements an "impediment" and said he would discuss it with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, during his trip.

"We wish for him [Bush] first to ask the Israelis to stop the settlement building and ... guarantee once more the ending of the occupation that happened in 1967," Abbas said on Monday after attending Orthodox Christmas services in Bethlehem.

Bush is due to arrive in the region on Wednesday to attempt to push forward peace negotiations begun in Annapolis last November.

Deadly attacks

Bush's visit comes as stepped-up Israeli attacks have killed eight Palestinians in the last two days.

Israeli forces moved into Gaza after a series of rocket attacks from the territory into southern Israel.

Ehud Barak, the defense minister, ordered the escalation, saying more effective missiles are available in Gaza, referring to a Palestinian rocket that struck the Israeli city of Ashkelon recently.

Five Israeli soldiers were wounded, one seriously, by return fire on Sunday.

Since the conclusion of the US-mediated Annapolis talks, Israel has conducted almost daily raids on targets in the Palestinian territories.

Mounting toll

During the final days of November, the day after Annapolis six Palestinians were killed and 22 injured, according to the Palestinian centre for Human Rights.

In December the Israeli army killed 68 people and about 63 were wounded.

And so far in January the death toll among Palestinians has risen to 19 whilst 25 have been injured.

On the other side, 11 Israelis were killed during 2007 - two since Annapolis.

Israeli defense

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mark Regev, spokesman for Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, defended the Israeli military operations.

He said: "We've got a situation where the Palestinian security services need to get their act together need to rebuilt, need to be retrained. They need to have their capabilities improved.

"That's not just the Israeli position, that's the position of the Arab world, the Europeans, of everyone who has following this process. And so I will say publicly and clearly: when Palestinian security is ready to meet the challenges, then Israeli security will not have any need to act.

"If Israel, were to allow a security vacuum to develop in the West Bank ... who would enter that security vaccum? Only the extremists. And not only would innocent people be killed, but you would see the peace process be killed."

Mixed progress

Despite the violence, Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators were to meet on Monday to agree on a plan for tackling Jerusalem and other "core issues" - future borders and Palestinian refugees as part of the peace process.

Olmert ordered last week a de-facto halt to new Israeli projects in the West Bank, but has not called off plans to build hundreds of new homes in an area near Jerusalem known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim.

The construction is a violation of a ruling from the Israeli attorney-general to stop applying the "absentee" law in East Jerusalem and has provoked criticism from Washington.

Abbas made clear that Israel's measures fell short of the clean sweep that Palestinians demand for any efforts at diplomacy to work.

He said on Monday a future Palestine should be founded alongside Israel, with "Jerusalem as capital of the two states: East Jerusalem for Palestinians and West Jerusalem for the Israelis".

PHOTO CAPTION

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president