Skirmishes flare before deadline

Skirmishes flare before deadline
REUTERS

OCTOBER 20: Sporadic skirmishes flared between Israelis and Palestinians on Friday as the deadline approached for an end to a wave of violence that has shattered Middle East peacemaking.

The Israeli army said a Palestinian was wounded in shooting near an army post near the Jewish settlement of Gush Katif in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip, and the army used teargas to disperse protesters near the border with Egypt.

But an army spokesman described the incidents as "nothing unusual" and there were no new reports of heavy fighting.

The fate of the US-brokered agreement, reached on Tuesday at an emergency summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, hung in the balance after a gun fight in which two people were killed near Nablus, in the West Bank, on Thursday.

US President Bill Clinton telephoned Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday evening to put pressure on them to ensure the violence ends.

The next 48 to 72 hours are likely to indicate whether the ceasefire agreement will come together, Clinton said.

The two sides "desperately don't want it to come apart," he told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned from a visit to Connecticut.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the period leading up to the expiry on Friday afternoon of a 48-hour deadline to implement the deal to end the violence was "crucial".

In Washington, White House National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said it was possible the agreement would not take root. "We're not out of the woods yet," he warned.

PROTESTS COULD TURN UGLY

Each side blames the other for the three weeks of fighting, in which at least 108 people have been killed. Most of the dead were Arabs and about one in five were aged 18 or under.

Tensions remained high on Friday. Twelve Palestinian factions including Arafat's Fatah movement and the militant Islamic group Hamas called on Palestinians to attend protests after mid-day prayers.

They said in a leaflet the protests were to emphasise that "our masses are committed to the path of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (uprising) and independence".

Such protests often turn ugly as demonstrators March towards Israeli army checkpoints and clashes erupt with Israeli troops.

Barak complained to reporters that Arafat was not doing his part. "We are trying to end the violence with all our might but to our sadness we have not seen anything similar by the Palestinian authority," he said on Thursday.

He said the fighting on Thursday near Nablus had been "very grave, and a gross violation by the Palestinian authority."

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior aide to Arafat, said it was Israel, not the Palestinians, that had failed to keep its part of the bargain to snuff out the violence.

"Since the Sharm el-Sheikh understandings were reached, the Israelis have violated them...Their objective is to destroy these understandings," he told Reuters.

Israel Radio reported Barak was holding an overnight session with security officials to discuss the shooting incident near Nablus in which Jewish settlers, including children, took cover behind rocks to evade bullets fired by Palestinian gunmen.

Palestinians accused Jewish settlers, who are often armed, of shooting first. They said Israel caused the violence by allowing the settlers to visit Palestinian areas.

EGYPT PESSIMISTIC OF CHANCES FOR PEACE

Israel has been easing blockades against Palestinians. It opened a border crossing to the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip to commercial traffic on Thursday.

But Palestinian officials say Palestinians are still being prevented from travelling to and from some West Bank towns and an overall closure preventing Palestinian labourers from entering Israel was causing economic hardship.

The Palestinian cabinet issued a statement after a special meeting in Gaza on Thursday night saying "the Palestinian people will continue defending its brave, popular Intifada (uprising)...until victory is achieved."

Egypt's Foreign Minister Amr Moussa told reporters on Thursday, two days before an Arab summit in Cairo, that peace talks with Israel had been badly damaged by the violence and were unlikely to resume soon.

Arab leaders are expected to take a joint stand against what Arabs see as Israel's failure to honour peace deals with the Palestinians and regard as its excessive use of force to quell protests that erupted on September 28.

In Geneva, the main UN human rights forum adopted are solution presented by Arab and Islamic countries to condemn Israel for "war crimes" in a tight vote in which 19 states voted in favour, 16 were against and 17 abstained.