The Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, in place for two months, has been given its stiffest test by the Israeli army killing three teenagers in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, shortly before the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, left for a meeting in Texas on Monday with United States President George Bush.
Sharon wants Bush to reaffirm that in return for his withdrawing Jews from the Strip, Jewish settlements in the West Bank can remain part of Israel.
The White House says it intends to press Sharon to abide by his earlier commitment not to expand the Jewish settlements.
His government has approved the construction of thousands of new homes to join one of the largest settlements to Jerusalem.
Palestinian leaders have urged Bush to take a much tougher stand with Sharon or risk the collapse of the ceasefire and the fledgling peace process.
Their chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, wrote to the US and other governments last week warning them that continued settlement expansion, land expropriation and other Israeli policies ”will destroy chances of reviving the peace process”.
The growing disappointment of many ordinary Palestinians with Sharon’s failure to fulfil his commitment to lift the Israeli blockade of most West Bank cities and undertake other measures to relieve the daily hardships of the occupation has been compounded by the killing of three 15-year-old youths in Rafah refugee camp on Saturday.
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced it as ”a violation of the truce” and said: ”We will not accept our children being killed this way.
”If the Israeli government genuinely wants to maintain calm and the ceasefire, it should prove that on the ground.”
Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were ”reconsidering” their commitment to the truce.
Palestinian insurgents responded to the killing by firing about 25 mortar shells into the Gush Katif settlement block, but they caused no injuries.
The three youths — Hassan Abu Zeid, Ashraf Mousa and Khaled Ghanem — were buried on Sunday by mourners who threatened vengeance.
The army said the teenagers were trying to cross into Egypt to smuggle back weapons.
The only survivor of the group, Ahmed al-Jazar (15) said they were playing football when one of them kicked the ball close to the army’s security zone.
”We went to get it. Then we heard an armoured vehicle so we ran. Ashraf and I threw ourselves on the ground but he stood up to run and was shot,” he said.
”Ashraf was holding on to me and really bleeding. I started praying because I thought this was the last minute of my life. I left Ashraf and I started crawling.”
He supported his account by producing a blood-stained football shirt.
He said they went to play football on open ground beside the security zone because they believed they would not be shot during the truce.
Some Palestinian witnesses said the youths were kicking the ball at an Israeli security camera on the border, trying to break it.
Ahmed denied this but his uncle Amed said that even if it were true the army had no right to kill them.
”Is this a justification for killing? The soldier could shoot one of them in the leg. He didn’t have to kill,” he said.
The army said it had video footage of the youths crawling through the sand, waiting for an armoured car to pass, then making a run for the border.
”I’ve seen the film myself,” an army spokesperson who identified himself as Lieutenant Gil said.
”The kids were not playing. These teenagers was crawling through the grass from the houses to the no entry zone where the sand begins.
”They were going to Egypt to bring back weapons. The forces encountered them just before the fence.”
The army’s rules of engagement require soldiers to fire warning shots, then to aim to disable a suspect by shooting at his legs, and to kill only if he is a threat to life.
It said the procedure was followed on this occasion.
But the director of Rafah hospital, Dr Ali Mousa, who inspected the corpses, said the wounds suggested that no attempt was made to disable them.
”Each of them died from a single high-calibre bullet. One in the back, one in the head and one in the neck,” he said .
”Whoever shot them meant to kill. If it had been indiscriminate fire there would have been wounds [all] over their bodies.
”If, as the Israelis said, they shot to disable them, where are the wounds? Why couldn’t they have scared them away or shot them in the leg?”
Ashraf Mousa’s father, Samir, said he believes his son was trying to escape when he was killed.
”Ashraf was shot in the back. He was trying to run away, he wasn’t running at the soldiers. He wasn’t a threat,” he said.
Ashraf Mousa was the seventh child in his school killed by the Israeli army since the intifada began in September 2000. – Guardian Unlimited Â