On-going Israeli Brutality Again Hinders The Resumption of Ceasefire Talks

12/04/2001| IslamWeb

GAZA (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Another Brutal Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip overnight, again casted a shadow over tentative efforts to resume talks on finally implementing a so far unheeded cease-fire.At least two Israeli missiles slammed into a Palestinian security post in Gaza late on Saturday, just hours after a Palestinians reprisal attack at an internationally illegal Jewish settlement in the strip. Three Palestinians were wounded in the strike.
There were further exchanges after the missile attack, capping a day of fitful intifadh confrontations that largely centered on Gaza.
Resistance men from an armed group linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction said they had fired mortars after one of their comrades was killed confronting Israeli occupation troops who had been on another brutal raid into Palestinian-ruled Gaza the previous night.
The renewed confrontations left doubts over the chances for a speedy resolution, despite remarks by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that a channel of dialogue had opened with the Palestinians on ending more than 10 months of revolt against Israeli occupation.
Peres said Israeli and Palestinian representatives were ''conducting conversations'' on implementing a U.S.-brokered cease-fire which never took hold after being agreed in mid-June.
A Palestinian official said Peres had been in contact and that Arafat had passed on a message through foreign envoys that he was prepared to meet Peres ``whenever he wants.''
``These meetings would be a retreat from the Israeli position that they will not talk politics without an end to the uprising,'' the Palestinian official told Reuters.
Left-winger Peres, an architect of previous peace deals, said he expected to meet with Arafat but did not say when.
EFFORTS TOWARD TRUCE TALKS
Right-wing leader Sharon has insisted talks focus on ending the intifadh and that no negotiations for a political peace settlement be launched before that happens. Peres said talks would focus on implementing a truce, ending incitements to confrontations, easing crippling Israeli blockades in the West Bank and Gaza and re-deploying Israeli occupation troops.
The new bloodshed came as Arab powerbroker Egypt, in contact with the United States, said it was formulating ideas to bring the sides back to an internationally backed truce-to-talks plan.Up to 5,000 mourners, some of them masked and firing shots in the air, turned out on Saturday for the funeral of Abdel Rahman Abu Bakra, the 29-year-old Fatah member who was killed in Gaza fighting Israeli troops during Friday's overnight raid. (Read photo caption below)
In further unrest, Palestinian witnesses and medics said a six-month-old baby was hit by three bullets when Israeli occupation troops shot at a Palestinian minivan near a checkpoint close to the West Bank city of Nablus.
Two Israelis were slightly wounded in a shooting attack on a bus on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he would tour European and Arab countries next month to offer a view on reviving peacemaking that he said would be ``without bias.''
PHOTO CAPTION:
Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets near Khan Younis, amid calls for revenge at the funeral of the Fatah member shot dead by Israeli soldiers.Palestinian hospital officials said 29-year-old Abdel Rahman Abu Bakra died from a shot in the head.