Undercover Israeli soldiers entered the Palestinian refugee camp Balata near Nablus, and nabbed five Fatah activists, reports said. The soldiers entered Balata in a mini-bus. As they started to detain the Palestinians, they became the targets of Palestinians fighters in the camp. Israeli reinforcements entered the camp and extricated the undercover unit.
Palestinian sources said that the abandoned mini-bus exploded a short time later, injuring 11.
Meanwhile, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Wednesday that "terror" groups are trying to sabotage new efforts to negotiate a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Sharon addressed the opening of his Likud party convention as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to discuss a U.S. proposal for creating a Palestinian state to exist in peace next to Israel.
Sharon said that he was ready to make painful compromises for peace. He told the convention, "We know the price of peace, and the Likud is prepared to pay this heavy price."
Referring to a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 14 people on Monday and to the new U.S. initiative, Sharon said, "Even as we are trying to put together a new proposal, a new plan, a formula for progress, the gangs of terror and murder and the one who heads them, make it clear again that they do not want a solution, that they do not want a compromise, that they do not want peace."
"There will be no compromise with terrorism," Sharon said, adding that the Israeli army would remain in "every place where the terrorists are and where they receive shelter." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
