Palestinian President Yasser Arafat angrily rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Bark's call for a time-out in the peace process, telling reporters on his return to Gaza late Sunday that Barak could "go to hell," reported AFP.
"My response is that our people are continuing on the road to Jerusalem, capital of the independent Palestinian state, whether (Barak) accepts or does not accept, let him go to hell."
Barak announced a "time-out" in the peace process, following the two-day Arab emergency summit.
Meanwhile US President Bill Clinton kept up the seemingly futile international efforts to ease the situation, said the agency.
Clinton spoke with Barak for the second time Sunday in an effort to "find a pathway back to the negotiating table," White House Chief of Staff John Podesta said on CNN.
Barak, while announcing the suspension of the peace process, acknowledged the deep divisions within his own cabinet.
He said he would now seek to buttress his government with the formation of a national emergency government, which would also strive towards a peace deal, though with "differences of emphasis and nuance."
"We face the immediate danger of severe attacks, shooting and deterioration," he warned.
According to AFP, the new government, if constituted, is likely to include Ariel Sharon, of the right-wing Likud Party, a sworn enemy of peace process concessions to Palestinians since the 1993 Oslo accords.
Palestinian Council member Hanan Ashrawi's reaction was scathing, saying on CNN that Barak had "managed to rob the peace process of any credibility, any legitimacy, any substance and any relationship to reality."
The peace process now "exists only as a fiction in the minds of the few, merely in the minds of the Arab leaders, who still think they can salvage peace from the jaws of destruction and war that is being waged against us," said Ashrawi.
In the meantime, the Israeli forces were on Sunday evening shelling the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, said Palestinian sources.
The sources added that the Israelis were firing at the town from posts on Abu Ghuneim Mount, which overlooks the town near Jerusalem.
They added that the mosque in Beit Sahour was also attacked during the incident.
The endless cycle of bloody violence continued to claim human lives in the Palestinian territories, with four other Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers on a day when Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced he was pausing the peace process.
Imad Ismael Hawamdeh, 23, was shot in the chest when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of youths who were throwing stones and bottles in Samo'a, outside Hebron.
Imad was killed after he attended the funeral of his relative, Majed Hawamdeh, who fell martyr on Saturday - (Several Sources)
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