Israeli warplanes and helicopters launched air strikes against Palestinian government targets in the West Bank city of Nablus early Sunday morning in retaliation for the suicide bombing that killed two teenagers at the Karnei Shomron settlement.
The planes fired missiles at the Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's bureau in the city. Apache helicopters attacked another government building in the city and the regional police headquarters.
Two Israelis were killed and 27 injured in the suicide bomb attack Saturday night at a shopping mall in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron.
The Qatari Al Jazeera Television reported that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack. According to this report, the suicide bomber was identified as Sadeq Abd al Haq, a resident of Qalqilya.
Nine people were seriously injured in the attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will call a meeting of the "extended security cabinet" on Sunday to review this latest attack and other weekend actions.
Also in Saturday, Palestinians fired Qassam rockets at an Israeli military base in the northern Gaza Strip. There were no injuries, but light damaged was caused to one of the buildings inside the base.
Fischer, Arafat
On Saturday, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer reaffirmed recognition of President Yasser Arafat as the Palestinians' leader, implicitly rejecting Israeli claims that Arafat is out of the game, according to AFP.
"For as long as we have elected leaders on both sides, we will continue to support them and to work with them," Fischer said during a joint press conference with Arafat after the two met in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israel has confined Arafat to Ramallah since early December.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Arafat is "out of the game" and declared that the Palestinian leader is not, and will not be, a partner for future negotiations. Sharon has repeatedly expressed a wish to see an alternative Palestinian leadership take Arafat's place.
For his part, the German Foreign Minister also reaffirmed that, "the only alternative to end this violence and terror is to sit down again and to negotiate. This needs courage from the leaders."
Yasser Arafat said he was "very happy with the EU [European Union] effort for the peace [...] and I hope that we will get something concrete".
In a separate development, high-ranking Arafat advisor Nabil Abu Rudeina told journalists that, "the Europeans, noting the absence of the United States, are trying to fill the gap created with an initiative designed to rescue the situation."
Fischer met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv on Friday, termed as "very good" a plan set out by Peres and the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Ahmed Qorei.
The plan proposes the recognition of a Palestinian state on the zones currently controlled by the Palestinians, and makes that the beginning point for a negotiation process. The plan is an unofficial document that has not been approved by either Sharon's government or Arafat's Palestinian Authority. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
