Two US mediators arrived in the Mideast Monday, but a suicide bomber’s attack showed that the latest uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation was not waning. Meanwhile, the Israeli army admitted to planting a bomb that pushed the death toll toll of Palestinian children to well past 100, said reports.
Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni arrived seeking to nudge the two sides toward implementing a ceasefire and restarting peace talks, said AP, in order to calm the Mideast conflict as the US and its allies concentrate on the war against terrorism.
But as with a previous peace mission to the region by a top-ranking EU delegation, the hopes that the US mediators would accomplish much were low.
On the Palestinian side, there is suspicion of the US, which claims to be an impartial broker while supplying Israel with billions of dollars in weaponry. Meanwhile, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is wary of US urgings to halt settlement activity on Palestinian land seized in 1967, and to end its policy of targeted assassination of resistance leaders that Palestinians say has claimed around 60 lives.
"I am sceptical about their chances of succeeding. With all due respect to General Zinni, more important officials from the US administration have come here without obtaining anything," AFP quoted right-wing Israeli minister without portfolio Danny Naveh as saying about the mediators.
For his part, Sharon said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat ``has to make a strategic decision to abandon the path of terrorism,'' according to a statement from his office cited by AP.
Sharon renewed a demand for seven days of ``absolute quiet'' - meaning no attacks on Israelis by resistance fighters - before moving ahead with a truce deal negotiated by CIA chief George Tenet in May, said the agency, adding that Palestinians say the demand allows any extremist to sink the process and amounts to a ploy to avoid negotiations. US officials have said privately they do not accept the Israeli stand but have not yet confronted Israel publicly. Fortune magazine ranks the pro-Israel lobby in America among the top five most powerful in America.
Sharon appointed Meir Dagan to head his negotiating team, said AP, noting that Dagan, a counterterrorism expert, has often doubted publicly whether Arafat wants to make peace with Israel.
AFP reported that the Palestinian side would be led by Ahmed Qorei, the parliamentary speaker.
The US officials were to meet Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on Tuesday and Arafat on Wednesday, said AP, adding that Burns and Zinni met at Israel's airport with Avi Dichter, director of Israel's Shin Bet security agency, and Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, chief of military intelligence.
FIGHTING CONTINUES ON GROUND
Hopes that the US mediators would accomplish much were dampened as fighting continued and Israel admitted that its forces had planted a bomb that blew apart five Palestinian schoolboys.
The Israeli military admitted Monday that a bomb it planted was responsible for the deaths of the five children in Gaza on Thursday. A statement cited by AP said the bomb was placed at a spot where Palestinian resistance fighters repeatedly fired at an Israeli military post and settlement and said the resulting death of the children ``was serious and very regrettable.''
According to a report issued earlier by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, Israeli troops killed nearly 100 Palestinian children in just the first few months of the latest rebellion. Since then, the toll of children killed by occupation forces has been steadily rising.
Other human rights groups have noted a consistent pattern of behavior by the occupation forces, in which they fire at demonstrators in situations where their own safety is in no immediate danger.
According to Reuters, over 700 Palestinians and more than 180 Israelis have been killed in the latest uprising, which began in Sept. 2000.
Late on Sunday, meanwhile, Palestinians detonated two bombs near the convoy of Israeli chief of staff Shaul Mofaz in the West Bank town of Hebron, causing no injuries, according to AFP.
And only hours before the arrival of the pair of US officials, a Palestinian approached an Israeli military checkpoint at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel and set off explosives, killing himself and wounding two Israeli border policemen, said AP.
Palestinians identified the attacker as Teissir Al Ajami, 22, a laborer at a nearby industrial park, one of the last areas where Palestinians and Israelis work together, said the agency, adding that Ajami was a member of the militant Hamas group.
In addition, Palestinians in the village of Beit Jalla opened fire at Gilo, a Jewish settlement in occupied Jerusalem, without causing casualties, said AP – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
