Shebaa clashes highlight regional peace dangers in Middle East

28/03/2001| IslamWeb

JERUSALEM, (AFP) - Prospects for peace in the Middle East again looked bleak Friday, with violence in the tinderbox Shebaa Farms area prompting Israeli warnings against Syria. (Read photo caption below).
An Egyptian policeman meanwhile fell victim to Israeli-Palestinian unrest in the Gaza Strip when he was killed by a stray bullet near Gaza.
Referring to the mortar attacks and West Bank clashes in the West Bank, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Paris that Friday's violence clearly signalled a seven-day period of total calm demanded by Sharon as a precursor to any more peace moves had not yet begun.
"This is not 'day one' of anything because the violence continues, we have not seen the cessation of violence," Powell told reporters accompanying him back to Washington from a three-day Middle East tour.
Israeli positions in the disputed farms area lying at the junction of Lebanon, Syria and Israel came under attack from Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah, leaving one soldier with "moderately serious" wounds, according to a military source.
Israel responded with artillery bombardment and by sending warplanes to bomb a hill in southern Lebanon.
An Israeli military spokesman said the Hezbollah attacks were "in violation of UN resolutions and... threaten regional peace."
The Lebanese police said Hezbollah fired more than 30 mortar bombs at their Israeli targets, and that the artillery fire in response consisted of more than 100 rounds of heavy calibre munitions.
This was the first Hezbollah attack on Israeli positions in the Shebaa Farms since May 14.
Israeli public television reported that military intelligence had been bracing for renewed activity by Hezbollah, while an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Avi Pazner, pointed the finger of blame at Syria.
"Syria bears the responsibility for this attack and will face the consequences, as it gives instructions to the Hezbollah, and is the conduit for arms supplied by Iran," Pazner told AFP.
Meanwhile, at the Israeli-controlled crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, an Egyptian policeman was shot dead Friday by a stray Israeli bullet becoming the first fatality in Egypt in nine months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Egyptian officials and Palestinian witnesses said the policeman was hit as Israeli troops were firing on Palestinian demonstrators on the Gaza Strip side of the border town.
The death brought to 628 the number of people killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation. They consist of 491 Palestinians, 117 Israelis, 13 Arab Israelis, six Europeans and an Egyptian.
In the Gaza Strip itself, six mortar bombs pounded Jewish settlements, while in the occupied West Bank, at least 27 Palestinians were wounded by gunfire from Israeli troops in clashes.
On the diplomatic front, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrived in Lisbon for talks with Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama on the situation in the Middle East.
Arafat and Peres will speak to delegates of a conference of the Socialist International early Saturday before the two politicians meet for one-to-one talks later in the day.
Conference delegates are expected to pass a resolution expressing their wishes that Israeli-Palestinian dialogue be strengthened by the Peres-Arafat conclave on the sidelines of the Socialist meeting, which began Friday.
However, those wishes come as Israel warned Friday it will not back down from its call for a total halt to Palestinian violence before moving ahead with a peace plan.
"There can be no flexibility when it comes to our demand that we achieve a complete elimination of violence," Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told AFP.
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PHOTO CAPTION

Smoke rises from an Israeli shell exploded on the village of Kfar Shouba in south Lebanon June 29, 2001. Hizbollah Resistance men wounded at least one Israeli occupation soldier in missile attacks on Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms region, Israeli military sources said. Israeli artillery then shelled the outskirts of a Lebanese border town, causing no casualties, witnesses said.
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