A European Union (EU) delegation is scheduled to arrive in the Mideast on Saturday for weekend talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders aimed at reviving dialogue between the two sides, against a backdrop of new strains in the Israeli government over remarks by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, said reports.
The visit by the EU team, led by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium which holds the union's rotating presidency, is the latest in a series of international efforts to stem 13 months of conflict in which at least 705 Palestinians and 188 Israelis have been killed, according to Reuters.
The officials have expressed particular concern about the explosive social and economic situation facing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza under blockades that Israel has imposed, said the agency.
The officials, including European Commission President Romano Prodi and EU security chief Javier Solana, are due to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Saturday, and
with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Peres on Sunday, according to reports.
Despite heavy US pressure on both sides for an end to fighting, the EU has played down hopes that the climate is right to relaunch stalled peace talks.
The EU officials are expected to emphasize the need to implement recommendations of the Mitchell Report, including calls for a ceasefire and confidence building measures ahead of peace talks, and to renew their offer to facilitate negotiations, said the agency.
Verhofstadt's visit has not been helped by the airing by Belgium's RTBF television on Friday night of a documentary examining whether Sharon should be tried in Belgium as a war criminal, ahead of a Brussels court ruling on the issue, added Reuters.
Sharon has been accused of turning a blind eye to the massacre of several hundred of Palestinian men, women and children in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps by Israel's Christian Arab allies during the invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s. At the time, Sharon was Israeli defense minister and architect of the invasion and occupation that lasted until May 2000.
The broadcast provoked "shock and dismay" from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, according to Reuters.
Israel and the Palestinians are now awaiting signals of US intentions from a policy speech which Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to make on Monday, added the agency.
UN ADDRESS BY PERES SPARKS FIRESTORM
As more diplomacy was in the works, political leaders in Israel reacted angrily to a United Nations speech by Peres in which he said most Israelis supported the creation of a Palestinian state, according to the BBC.
Members of the Israeli cabinet called for Peres' resignation, said the news service, adding that Sharon had not commented on Peres' remarks, which Israeli media said were made with the prime minister's approval.
In a 20-minute address to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Mr Peres said that in Israel "there is support for a Palestinian independence, support for a Palestinian state."
But, he said, it was not the official policy of the government, according to the BBC.
Sharon recently publicly endorsed a Palestinian state, but with strict limitations. Many Palestinians say the aging general wants to create a puppet state in the style of apartheid South Africa's bantustans - disarmed, territorially dismembered and economically dependent.
Israeli Interior Minister Uzi Landau, a member of Sharon's Likud party in Israel's national unity government, accused Peres of "carrying out an attack on Israel's national security and having encouraged terrorism."
A previous Israeli prime minister, Yitzak Rabin, was assasinated several years ago by a right-wing Israeli for moving towards a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
Fundamentalist Jewish settlers believe that Israel has a God-given deed to Palestinian land conquered in 1967, while their right-wing allies argue that Israel must annex vast swathes of Arab land in order to guarantee its security.
FIGHTING CONTINUES ON GROUND
In continuing clashes, meanwhile, the BBC reported that Israeli police shot dead a Palestinian and wounded another near the central Israeli city of Ramle and sent tanks into Palestinian areas of Gaza.
Palestinian security officials said Israeli tanks destroyed farmland in northern Gaza and destroyed a police post near the Karni crossing in central Gaza. The Israeli army has not commented on the report, added the UK-based news service.
Earlier, Palestinians fired a homemade rocket at an Israeli army position on the edge of the Gaza Strip for the first time. The rocket caused no casualties, the Israeli army said, according to the BBC.
In the other clashes in the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of military occupation, Israeli soldiers fired teargas and rubber bullets at rock-throwing Palestinian protesters in the West Bank city of Ramallah after the first Friday prayers in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, said Reuters.
Several Palestinians were wounded in clashes near an Israeli army checkpoint and in scuffles that broke out when police barred some Palestinians from attending prayers in occupied Jerusalem's Old City, a key flashpoint of the uprising, said the agency.
However, the gathering of an estimated 100,000 Muslim worshippers was largely peaceful - Albawaba.com
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