Israeli forces on Tuesday imposed a complete closure of the occupied territories following warnings of an imminent attack by Palestinian militants, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought afresh to forge a new coalition government.
Sharon’s right-wing Likud on Monday officially kicked off coalition talks with moderate groups, seeking to avoid a far-right government.
Meanwhile the violence on the ground continued with Israeli troops shooting dead two Palestinian militants as they shut down the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a bid to prevent attacks against Israeli targets.
Israel imposed the closure late on Monday for the remainder of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday meaning thousands of Palestinians will be unable to enter Israel to work.
The five-day holiday, which marks the willingness of the patriarch Abraham to sacrifice his son to God, is due to end on Friday.
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, who issued the order, said it was a ”necessary step” in the light of the severe warnings of large-scale attacks to be carried out within Israel over the next few days.
Meanwhile, the Israeli premier got stuck into the first round of coalition bargaining in Tel Aviv, but was again snubbed by the centre-left Labour party.
Sharon favours a broad national unity government, and his efforts looked set to focus on convincing the secular centre-right Shinui party and its 15 MPs to join a new coalition following the January 28 elections in which Likud came out on top but well short of a parliamentary majority.
Former Sharon adviser Uri Shani, who is leading the talks for the premier’s Likud party, met on Monday with Shinui’s arch-foes the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, as well as the extreme-right National Union bloc.
He was due to initiate a second round of talks with the remaining parties Tuesday, but Labour and its dovish chief Amram Mitzna are refusing to participate in the talks, in line with the party’s refusal to join any government led by Sharon.
The 74-year-old former general has up to 42 days to form a stable coalition and is still hoping to coax Labour into a national unity government.
On Sunday, the premier’s office revealed he had taken part in secret talks with the Palestinians, in a timely announcement which prompted analysts to suspect Sharon was attempting to woo Labour, which wants a resumption of peace talks.
Meanwhile in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, violence continued unabated, as three more Palestinians died, bringing the toll for the 28-month-old intifada ever closer to 3 000.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead a member of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in a pre-dawn raid near the town of Nablus, a PFLP source said.
The army confirmed the killing and said the soldiers shot him as he tried to escape arrest. Troops nabbed three would-be kamikazes in the West Bank, the army said, identifying one as a member of the hardline Islamic movement Hamas, and another as from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah group.
Violence also flared in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli troops shot dead an armed Palestinian near a Jewish settlement, military sources said.
The attack was claimed by the PFLP-General Command, a radical Palestinian group based in Syria with close links to Iran and Libya.
Palestinian medical sources said a Palestinian who was critically injured by Israeli troops in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem Saturday had also died of his wounds.
Meanwhile, an array of top Israeli officials welcomed home the remains of Ilan Ramon, the Jewish state’s first astronaut, who was killed together with six other crew members on February 1 when the Columbia space shuttle disintegrated over Texas.
A memorial ceremony was held at an airforce base near Tel Aviv which was attended by Sharon, Mofaz, Israeli president Moshe Katsav, Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon and other high-level figures. Ramon’s private funeral was due to be held in a farming community on Tuesday.
And as the Jewish State readies itself for the mounting possibility of a US-led war on Iraq, two Patriot anti-missile batteries arrived at the southern Israeli port of Ashdod on short-term loan from Germany, a defence ministry representative said. The batteries, which are being loaned to Israel for two years under an agreement signed last month, raises the total number of Patriots in Israel to seven.
The new generation Patriots will form part of Israel’s anti-ballistic missile defence system, which uses both Patriot and homegrown Arrow missiles, ahead of a possible US-led strike on Iraq. – Sapa-AFP