Israelis and Palestinians accused each other of wrecking a six-week-old truce after a pair of Palestinian suicide bombings on Tuesday that dealt a new blow to the United States-sponsored peace process.
The blasts at an Israeli shopping center and a Jewish settlement on the West Bank killed two Israelis, wounded 12 and highlighted how difficult it is to keep alive peace hopes among so many players with so many scores to settle.
The most serious Palestinian attacks since Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups proclaimed a three-month truce on June 29 sent a chill through efforts to implement Washington’s ”roadmap” for peace.
Israel abruptly postponed plans to free 69 Palestinians convicted of criminal offences, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz hurried back from his European holiday and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was talking tough.
”There can be no progress in the peace process without a complete halt to terror,” Sharon said as he prepared to receive William Burns, the top US diplomat on the Middle East, for progress talks on the roadmap.
The Palestinian Authority issued what it called a ”tough condemnation” of Tuesday’s violence. But moderate and hardline Palestinians joined in throwing the blame for the flare-up on Israel.
”The truce is in danger of imploding if Israel continues its attacks on the Palestinians,” Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas said in Qatar, on the third leg of a regional tour he was considering cutting short.
”Israel is responsible for the violence,” charged Islamic Jihad spokesperson Mohammad al-Hindi. ”They don’t respect the ceasefire and they continued their attacks against the Palestinian people since the first day of the ceasefire.”
Hamas spokesperson Ismail Haniya said his group was still committed to the truce but added: ”The Israeli enemy is responsible for this situation because of their rejection of the ceasefire and their tough position.”
With Tuesday’s bombings, 24 people have been killed in just more than six weeks since the truce took hold, compared with a monthly average of 100 for the first 33 months of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
But after nearly three years of bloodshed and 3 400 deaths, both sides still appeared to be caught in a chain of tit-for-tat events neither can control.
The armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing outside the Ariel settlement as retaliation for an Israeli raid on Friday that left four Palestinians dead, including two of its members, in Nablus on the West Bank.
But the Israelis say the Nablus operation targeted a Palestinian explosives factory amid mounting intelligence reports that the militants were stockpiling arms and infiltrating ”sleeper” suicide bombers into Israel.
Israeli officials say that Abbas has done little to rein in the militants.
Sharon Feingold, an Israeli army spokesperson, said 180 Palestinian attacks had been carried out since the truce, most by gunfire. Out of 200 Palestinians arrested since June 29, she said, 10 were en route to suicide attacks.
Avi Pazner, an Israeli government spokesperson, said they had advised the Palestinian Authority that militants were preparing attacks but Abbas’s administration did nothing.
The Palestinians have been dismayed by what they call foot-dragging by the Israelis in making any real concessions.
They asked Israel to release all 6 000 Palestinian prisoners. Israel has freed about 340, and little progress has been made in dismantling the Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.
A major irritant is the security barrier that Israel has been erecting to protect itself from would-be attackers from the West Bank, but which the Palestinians see as a means of grabbing more of their territory.
It likely was no coincidence that the Palestinian attacks on Tuesday were focused on an area near where the current barrier ends and another where it is slated to veer into the West Bank to wall off the Ariel settlement. — Sapa-AFP