Sharon Rejects EU Peace Call As Occupation Army Kills Two Palestinians in Gaza

15/05/2001| IslamWeb

JERUSALEM (Islamweb & News Agencies) - The Israeli occupation army said it killed two armed Palestinians near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
Israeli media reports said two other Palestinian Resistance men in the squad escaped.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian security officials on the incident.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meanwhile rejected Sunday a European Union call to set in motion an internationally backed truce-to-talks plan, claiming Palestinians had not done enough to stop violence.In comments that could put him at odds with Washington, Sharon said Israel stood firm in demanding a seven-day halt to what he called Palestinian terrorism before implementation of proposals by a panel led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell.
A Palestinian peace negotiator responded by saying Sharon's only aim was to destroy the peace process and the Palestinian Authority.
Sharon laid out Israel's preconditions for implementing the Mitchell proposals amid Israeli media reports that Secretary of State Colin Powell was to declare the terms unrealistic in a Middle East policy speech Monday.
Powell, in a U.S. television interview, said he would not introduce a new plan for Middle East peace in his speech.
At the news conference, the leader of the EU delegation, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, spoke of a decrease, rather than a cessation, of violence as a way to move forward.
Powell did not refer on television to Sharon's demand for seven days of calm, but reiterated that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat ``needs to make a 100 percent effort to end all the violence, and we need to see results that reflect that 100 percent effort.''
Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters of Sharon's remarks: ``He wants to continue to put obstacles in front of the implementation of Mitchell and Tenet and any attempt to put the peace process back on the correct track.''