Israel's foreign minister said Saturday that any truce agreement with Hamas must quickly be followed by a Palestinian crackdown on the resistance group.
Also Saturday, a Palestinian man died of injuries suffered in an Israeli missile strike that killed a Hamas activist last week.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Saturday no progress can be made on the plan, the so-called "road map" to Palestinian statehood by 2005, unless Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas makes a strategic decision to dismantle Hamas network.
"If we don't insist on this now, we won't be able to carry out the (peace) process," he told Israel Radio. Shalom said he told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday that "a cease-fire, which in itself is a ticking bomb, cannot be long-term."
Meanwhile, the United States national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is planning a Middle East trip next week to try to push forward the U.S.-backed peace plan, sources said on Friday.
On Friday, Secretary of State Colin Powell was in the region appealing for urgent action to save the peace plan.
Sources said Rice was expected to have follow-up consultations with the parties. She also was planning a speech in London on Thursday to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders on Friday called on Hamas to declare an immediate cease-fire and halt all "terrorist" activity or face having the entire Palestinian group listed as a "terrorist" group.
In a draft statement issued at an EU summit, the leaders said they were "urgently examining the case for wider action against Hamas fund raising."
They called on Hamas and other groups to declare immediately a cease-fire and "to halt all terrorist activity." (Albawaba.com)
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
