Mideast Antagonists Accuse Each Other of Ceasefire Violations

26/03/2001| IslamWeb

[Hundreds of Palestinians prevented from passing to the West Bank Town of Tulkurm. Read photo caption below].

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States voiced hope the cease-fire it brokered between Israel and the Palestinians would survive, as Israeli leaders ``reassessed'' the battered week-old truce.
Israeli right-wingers have piled pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to scrap the cease-fire and take strong military action after Palestinian gunmen shot dead two Jewish settlers in separate attacks in the West Bank this week.
Sharon began on Tuesday what a spokesman for the prime minister called a reassessment of the cease-fire deal forged by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet. Sharon's security cabinet was to discuss the issue on Wednesday.
For their part, Palestinian officials have accused Israel of failing to adhere to the cease-fire terms by largely keeping in place blockades around Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
``There are people who are spat upon and choose to say it is raining,'' said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai, calling on the government to stop turning the other cheek in the face of alleged Palestinian violations of the truce.
But with a meeting scheduled in Washington next week between Sharon and U.S. President George Bush, the Israeli leader might be reluctant to take action now that could shatter a truce plan that has the White House's stamp of approval.
``The president's hope is that the cease-fire will continue to take hold, that the violence will diminish, and that (an) unconditional cease-fire by both parties can be implemented,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters on Tuesday.
He said efforts to cement the truce would continue when Sharon and Bush meet on June 26.
FIVE-YEAR-OLD PALESTINIAN BOY HURT IN WEST BANK
In Madrid, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Jewish settlers, living on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, were responsible for the violence.
``We do not commit acts of violence,'' he told a news conference. ``The violence today is committed by the settlers... Regrettably, some Israeli forces, not all of them, protect these settlers.''
Tenet negotiated the truce plan after Arafat offered a cease-fire in the wake of a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed the bomber and 21 other people at a Tel Aviv disco on June 1.
Israel had threatened powerful military retaliation after the blast, the deadliest attack in the Jewish state since a Palestinian uprising for independence erupted last September.
Since the U.S.-mediated cease-fire began, five Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed.
On Tuesday, Palestinian hospital officials said a tear gas canister fired by Israeli soldiers fractured the skull of a five-year-old Palestinian boy as he and his family tried to circumvent a roadblock near the West Bank city of Nablus.
An Israeli army spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the incident. A hospital official said the boy sustained ``moderate wounds.''
Israeli and Palestinian security officials were due to meet on Wednesday, joined by U.S. officials, to set a timetable for the army to completely lift its blockade, which has severely hurt the fragile Palestinian economy.
But after the attacks on the settlers, the army dug at least three trenches around Tulkarm and tightened blockades on Nablus and Jenin, all cities in the West Bank, witnesses said.
It also built trenches around the town of Tubas, preventing goods moving from Jericho to other parts of the West Bank.
``We remain committed to Tenet's plan, but... the Palestinian side is not complying,'' Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin, said. ``The cease-fire is not working... We can't go on like this, people are getting killed.''
PERES SEEKS EUROPEAN SUPPORT
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met European Union ambassadors in Jerusalem on Tuesday and said the Palestinians had violated the cease-fire more than 50 times since it began.
``The situation is very serious and I think all parties have to make a major effort, particularly the Palestinians, to save the cease-fire from falling apart,'' he told reporters.
Marwan Barghouthi, a senior leader of Arafat's Fatah faction in the West Bank, said the uprising would continue until Israelis recognized Palestinian national rights.
``The real cease-fire, from our point of view, means full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories,'' he said.
The Israeli army reported a series of shootings in the West Bank on Tuesday and said five mortar bombs were fired at a Jewish settlement in Gaza but caused no injuries.
Palestinian witnesses said Jewish settlers had fired on at least one car and thrown stones on a road near Nablus.
The Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria, the umbrella settler group in the West Bank, said a bulletproof settler car came under fire late on Tuesday, but no one was hurt.
Some 200,000 Israelis live in 145 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to three million Palestinians. Many Palestinians view attacks on settlers as legitimate resistance to occupation. Israel counters that Palestinian leaders have agreed that settlements can remain in place pending a final peace treaty.
Israel's Finance Ministry announced, meanwhile, that it was granting settlers an exemption from duty and purchase taxes on materials used to make their vehicles bulletproof.
At least 460 Palestinians, 115 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed in the last eight months of violence.
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PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli soldiers prevent hundreds of Palestinians from passing to the west Bank town of Tulkarem June 19, 2001. Israel said it had begun reassessing a nearly week-old cease-fire with the Palestinians at top-level security meetings after Palestinians shot dead two Jewish settlers. (Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)
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