An intense gunfight between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers rang out Friday near an Israeli checkpoint on the northern edge of Ramallah for the first time there in six weeks, reported AFP and BBC.online.
Violent clashes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians, including a gunfight, left 18 injured, during a night of some of the worst fighting in weeks.
Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets on youths who threw stones at them after a protest march of some 1,500 people following afternoon prayers in Ramallah, witnesses and medical officials told AFP.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the shooting, in which the Israelis using tank-mounted weapons. The gunfight followed a night that saw the Israeli army fire heavy machine-guns on the Palestinian-run area, lightly injuring four people, medical officials said.
Israeli tanks shelled the West Bank town of Beireh and Rafah in the Gaza Strip following a booby-trapped car explosion in Jerusalem on Thursday, according to Al Jazira satellite channel Friday.
The station said the attack also followed fire exchange between armed Palestinians and the Israeli forces which led to injuries among Palestinian civilians.
The bomb, which exploded at 16:45 local time in a side street of a predominantly ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, injured an old woman, while nine were rushed to hospital in a shock state.
Haaretz said four were lightly injured. The attackers are believed to have scheduled their bomb to explode close to a time when throngs of people crowd a local soup kitchen, it added.
According to reports, two previously unknown groups took responsibility for the attack in faxes sent to news agencies: "The Popular Palestinian Resistance Force for Sabra and Shatila" and the Popular Army Front. The latter pledged to "continue its attacks against the enemy everywhere."
The group said the bombing was "a first message to the criminal and fascist Sharon," according to The Jerusalem Post, which said the car containing the bomb was said by police investigators to be a white Ford Escort, stolen from Israel about two months ago.
The daily quoted investigators as saying a disaster was avoided by “luck” only.
"It was a great miracle that nobody was killed, since there was a very large amount of explosives in the car," Jerusalem police chief, Mickey Levy told reporters at the scene that security officials had received alerts about possible car bombings by Hamas and Islamic Jihad this week, but said police did not know the attack would occur in Jerusalem.
Al Jazira quoted Israeli security officials as saying another trapped car had passed the Green Line into Israel, with no further details.
The attack, coming just two days after Ariel Sharon was elected premier in a landslide victory, prompted a stern warning from the prime minister-elect.
Sharon said that peace talks will not be restarted unless there is an absolute cessation of terror and violence and a demand that the Palestinian Authority bring a complete halt to terror, according to the Post.
"What happened today is another tragic event which demands that we all unite to act with determination against terror," Sharon said shortly after the bombing.
He said that although peace negotiations are important, and that the government he heads will make every effort to reach a peace agreement, the cessation of terror and violence is an unimpeachable condition to holding negotiations.
In a letter he sent Thursday night to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in response to the congratulatory letter he received from the latter, Sharon wrote that Israel wants to continue the negotiations with the PA, but set the end of violence as a condition, according to Radio Israel.
Outgoing premier Ehud Barak responded to Thursday’s attack by saying that such attempts to shake the staying power of the country "will not succeed. Israel will continue to fight terror and to hit at those who try to attack us."
Barak was quoted by the Post as saying that personal security and quiet will ultimately be achieved only through "a physical separation between us and the Palestinians."
Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert said Sharon is "already planning on different measures to be taken that will thwart such attacks in the future."
According to the daily, soon after the blast, cries of "Death to the Arabs" could be heard in the angry crowd that formed, many of whose members began to scuffle with police. Police sappers, who were searching for possible additional bombs, had urged them to clear the streets, a plea that fell on deaf ears. Frustrated policemen had to shove the crowd back.
BUSH ALSO URGES ARAFAT TO HALT VIOLENCE, CONDEMNS CAR BOMB ATTAC
President George W. Bush Thursday urged Arafat to help break the latest cycle of Middle East violence, shortly before the car bomb attack, said AFP.
Bush's telephone call to Arafat was his first since the US leader took office January 20 and ushered in a more hands-off approach to Washington's role in the peace process than the one embraced by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
"The president reiterated our support for a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians and he urged Chairman Arafat to help stop the violence and calm the situation," White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Countryman said.
"The two of them discussed the peace process after Israel's election as well as the means to strengthen bilateral cooperation," senior Arafat advisor Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP in Gaza City.
The White House later condemned the attack, which sent tremors through Israel two days after hawkish leader Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister, calling it "another reminder" of the need to forge a comprehensive peace in the region.
SHARON "ENCOURAGED" BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S DISTANCE FROM CLINTON PLAN
Sharon is "encouraged" that the Bush administration has distanced itself with the compromise peace proposals set forth by former US president Bill Clinton, a Sharon spokesman said Friday, quoted by AFP.
"President George W. Bush's approach is positive and encouraging. ... (He) told Mr. Sharon in a phone call that he did not consider himself tied to these ideas," spokesman Raanan Gissin told AFP.
He said Clinton himself told Sharon that his peace compromises were not binding if the Israelis and Palestinians did not reach an accord.
Barak had in principle accepted the Clinton plan, which called among other things for some Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem, anathema to Sharon's right-wing Likud party, said the agency.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday that Washington stopped holding the Clinton plan as a guideline when he left office.
The Bush administration also refrained from sending an envoy to marathon talks last month in Egypt between the Barak government and the Palestinians, an implicit criticism of Clinton's heavy involvement in the peace process.
However, US Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit the Middle East in fifteen days, Israel Radio reported. While in Israel, Powell will meet with Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and President Moshe Katsav. Powell will then continue on to Jordan, said the report, cited by Haaretz.
PRODI: SHARON WILL BE JUDGED BY HIS ACTIONS, PEACE TALKS MUST RESUME WHERE THEY LEFT OFF
European Commission President Romano Prodi Thursday said Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon should be judged on his actions and called on him to resume peace talks with the Palestinians from where they left off in Taba, reported AFP.
"We are now at a crossroads. There is a new prime minister in Israel and there is a new president in Washington," Prodi told a press conference in Amman before flying to Beirut.
"Mr. Sharon will be judged on facts and on his actions as prime minister," he said following a marathon day of talks with King Abdullah II, Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb and senior Jordanian officials on the troubled Middle East peace process and strengthening bilateral ties.
"We are full of attention on Israeli policy, we shall follow Israeli policy and we will try to give our contribution to the construction of peace. We shall multiply our efforts for the sake of peace progress," Prodi said.
He went on to urge Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume peace talks from the point where they left off at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba where Prodi said "remarkable progress" had been achieved.
"To get peace you need dialogue, you need progress, you need trust ... but I hope that the peace process will start again from the conclusions reached in Taba," he said.
Talks between Israel and the Palestinians ended January 28 after negotiators from either side spoke of progress being made although they fell short of reaching a full agreement on key issues dividing them.
Prodi arrived in Beirut Thursday night for talks with Lebanese officials on Lebanon-EU cooperation.
EGYPTIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: MUST BE PREPARED FOR WAR
Egyptian Defense Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi said Thursday that the Egyptian army must be prepared for the possibility of war. "We are currently at a crucial stage in attempting to reach a desired peace after having proved to everyone that our armed forces are one to be reckoned with. We can not forget that we must be ready for war," Tantawi was quoted by Haaretz as saying..
The remarks made by Tantawi were apparently made in response to various comments that originated in Israel, specifically those made by MK Avigdor Lieberman (National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu) who mentioned the possibility of Israel bombing the Aswan Dam. "Everyone must remember the war in October 1973 before they discuss attacking Egypt," Tantawi said.
Cautionary voices in Egypt in recent days have warned that the election of Ariel Sharon will lead to a regional war.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Amr Moussa has said that the Arab leaders will discuss the developments in the wake of Sharon,s election during the next summit in Amman late March.
SYRIA READY FOR PEACE, BUT SHARON MUST GIVE UP HARD LINE
Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's hard line against returning the Golan Heights to Syria has totally blocked the peace process, a senior Syrian member of parliament said Thursday, quoted by AFP.
Separately, Syria's defense minister denounced Sharon's "criminal past," alluding to his indirect role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon when Sharon was Israeli defense minister.
Yasser Nehlawi, head of the parliament's national security committee, was responding to a rejection by a Sharon aide of Syria's conditions for resuming peace negotiations.
"In light of Sharon's 'nos' the negotiations will stay blocked until something new comes out of Israel enabling the process to warm up again," Nehlawi told AFP.
Outgoing prime minister Ehud Barak was prepared in principle to restore most of the occupied territory to Syria, while holding on to the shores of the Tiberius Lake, from which Israel gets most of its fresh water.
But Sharon has said that for security reasons that none of the Golan would be handed back, said the agency.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stated Wednesday that his country was ready to restart talks with the government of the new Israeli prime minister if it agreed to "carry through the conditions for peace" from Damascus, SANA news agency reported.
"Everyone knows our conditions for peace. We are ready to engage in negotiations with those who can see them through," Assad said in an interview appearing Thursday in the Asharq al-Awsat daily.
"The problem is that each new prime minister in Israel wants to go back to square one with the negotiations," Nehlawi said, referring to Syria's assertions that former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated in 1995, had pledged to hand back the Golan.
Israel has always denied Rabin's promise, which Damascus says can be confirmed by Washington, said AFP – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
