Israel, Palestinians to Gauge Ceasefire Steps

24/03/2001| IslamWeb

            [Israeli occupation army withdrawing from
             a position near Ramallah, June, 14, 2001.
             Read photo caption below]

              
Israel, Palestinians to Gauge Ceasefire Steps

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians headed to security talks on Friday to gauge early measures on implementing a U.S.-brokered cease-fire, despite violence in which three people were killed since the truce was forged.
Major-General Giora Eiland, head of the Israeli army's strategic planning division, said the meeting would include U.S. officials and would assess steps taken to reduce bloodshed.
``I hope the situation on the ground will be better than today so there will be some basis for further progress,'' Eiland told reporters. Three people had been killed since the cease-fire took effect at noon GMT on Wednesday.
Palestinian cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo described the first 24 hours of the ceasfire, which was mapped out by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet, as a ``total failure'' in its goal of ending more than eight months of conflict.
In the latest incident, three Jewish settlers were wounded when Palestinian gunmen fired on their car in the West Bank.
Ten Palestinians were wounded, at least one critically, by Israeli troops in a stonethrowing confrontation near the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.
Israeli military sources said soldiers shot at a few demonstrators out of several hundred who threw stones and tried to rip down the fence of a Jewish settlement.
``We consider the first day after the agreement was signed is a complete failure to the plan,'' Rabbo told Reuters.
``The United States should intervene to force Israel to deal seriously and stop all Israeli violation and stealing of land.''
Sources from both sides said that a handful of Israeli tanks withdrew from several flashpoint areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a move to reduce friction.
The army said it reopened crossings between the Palestinian territories with Egypt and Jordan, which were closed after a suicide bomber killed 20 at a Tel Aviv beach disco on June 1.
It added that Israel had eased restrictions on Palestinian use of coastal waters off Gaza and that commercial traffic with Israel had also resumed in several areas.
CLOSURES STILL TIGHT ON PALESTINIAN TRAVEL
But Palestinians dismissed the measures as cosmetic as long as movement for the wider population remained restricted under Israeli security closures in the West Bank and Gaza.
``Moving the tanks was done just before the television cameras but on the ground the situation remained as it is and suffocates the Palestinians,'' a senior Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat, told Reuters.
Major-General Eiland said the Israeli army would ease restrictions on Palestinian travel if a fresh spate of roadside shootings subsided.
``If the other side doesn't take real measures to prevent this kind of attack then it might be too risky to open all the roads to...the free movement of Palestinians because the result might be a tremendous increase in Israeli casualties,'' he said.
Earlier on Thursday, a Palestinian who once collaborated with Israeli security forces shot and killed an Israeli army officer at a meeting with his handlers in the West Bank. Another Israeli returned fire and killed the Palestinian man.
Late on Wednesday, a Palestinian was killed in a drive-by shooting on a West Bank road. Israeli police said they were looking into the possibility that Jews were responsible.
The world was looking on anxiously to see if the truce would hold and if the region return to relative calm for the first time since late September, when the Palestinians launched their revolt against Israeli occupation after peace efforts stalled.
In the ensuing violence, at least 457 Palestinians, 112 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed.
Under the truce terms, Israel had 48 hours to start lifting its blockade of Palestinian areas and redeploying troops.
The Palestinian Authority was required immediately to arrest militants, collect illegal arms including mortars, shut down bomb factories and prevent arms smuggling.
SYRIAN TROOPS LEAVING LEBANON
Across Israel's northern border, Syrian forces began moving tanks out of Lebanon late on Thursday, hours after the start of a surprise redeployment of some of Damascus's controversial 35,000-strong military contingent in its western neighbor.
Dozens of military transport trucks carrying tanks and other equipment moved toward the Syrian border on the road that links Beirut and Damascus, passing through Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
The troop redeployment followed months of bitter opposition to Syria's military presence spearheaded by leaders of Lebanon's big minority Maronite Christian community, and centers on bases in largely Christian areas in and around Beirut.
The Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, who has been one of the most vocal critics of Syria's domination of Lebanese affairs, welcomed the move but was quoted by Lebanese radio as saying that discontent over Syrian influence remained
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PHOTO CAPTION

An Israeli soldier directs an Israeli tank as the Israeli army started to withdraw from a position near Ramallah, June 14, 2001. A U.S.-brokered cease-fire failed in its initial hours to halt Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed despite efforts on both sides to cement the truce designed to end eight month of violence. (Yossi Zamir/Flash 90 viaReuters)
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