The fate of Israel’s offer to make its most significant military withdrawal since the beginning of the intifada hung in the balance last night as the Palestinians demanded an end to the assassination of members of Hamas and other militants while Ariel Sharon said they could go on.
Major General Amos Gilad, Israel’s commander in the occupied territories, and Mohammed Dahlan, the security chief for the Palestinian Authority, agreed in principle at the weekend to transfer security from the Israeli army to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, except the Jewish settlements, and in Bethlehem, which was reoccupied by Israel a year ago. The agreement came after US pressure to curb a surge in bloodshed before it did irreversible damage to the ”road map” to peace.
The Israeli army’s withdrawal would be phased, beginning with the volatile northern Gaza areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. But Dahlan set a number of conditions, including an end to ”targeted killings”. The Palestinians also want the Israelis to close or move checkpoints which provide security for Jewish settlers but which are a stranglehold on movement within the Gaza Strip.
However, Sharon told his cabinet yesterday that the army would continue to target Palestinian militants whom he described as ”ticking bombs”.
The director of military intelligence, Major General Aaron Ze’evi, told the cabinet that the US had approved operations against Hamas ”without harming innocent bystanders and without causing irreparable damage”.
President George Bush defended Israel’s right to attack Hamas yesterday. ”The free world and those who love freedom and peace must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers,” he said. But he was privately furious at Israel’s botched assassination attempt against Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, Hamas’s political leader, which prompted a shattering round of bloodshed which has claimed 65 lives on both sides.
Sharon’s chief aide, Dov Weisglass, is to meet Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in Washington today to defend the assassination attempt which is widely seen, even in Israel, as a bid to undermine the road map.
The Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, resisted an offer from the Israelis to hand over security responsibility for Gaza a fortnight ago because he hoped to secure a ceasefire from Hamas first and prepare security forces.
Yesterday the Palestinians said they would not be prepared to accept responsibility for security in Gaza or Bethlehem for at least a week.
A senior Palestinian source said that he believed Hamas would agree to end attacks on Israeli civilians within days but the deal would not formally be called a ceasefire as the Islamist movement would reserve the right to target Israeli soldiers occupying Gaza. An Egyptian delegation arrived in Gaza yesterday for a meeting with Hamas to persuade it to agree to a six month truce.
Richard Lugar, chairperson of the US Senate foreign relations committee, yesterday raised the possibility of dispatching US troops to confront Hamas. Lugar said an international force could be used to quell violence ”and, maybe even more important, to root out the terrorism that is at the heart of the problem”. The Israelis have consistently opposed the deployment of foreign troops, a move which has also been proposed by the UN and France.
Peace Now, an Israeli peace group said yesterday that four new Jewish outposts made up of caravans and containers have been erected in the West Bank since Sharon committed Israel to dismantle rudimentary settlements at the peace summit a fortnight ago. The Israelis said they would resume dismantling 94 outposts in the coming days after the operation was put on hold because of rising tensions last week. – Guardian Unlimited Â