Israel will decide how to respond to the latest surge in violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during an emergency cabinet session Tuesday, amid calls by angry Jewish settlers to crush the Palestinian uprising.
"We are going to focus on what kind of response we are going to take. But I do not want to jump the gun, literally or figuratively" in saying what measures were being envisaged, government spokesman Moshe Fogel told a news conference.
The emergency cabinet meeting is being held the day after four Israelis -- one woman settler, a truck driver and two soldiers -- were gunned down in separate drive-by shootings that rocked the West Bank and led the Israeli army to seal off eight main Palestinian-controlled cities.
The meeting will be chaired by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, currently on his way back from the United States where he held talks with US President Bill Clinton on ways to end the cycle of violence.
Fogel said Israel's priorities, to be discussed at the meeting, were three-fold: ensure the lives of Israelis are not in danger; make clear to the Palestinian Authority that violence will not pay; and determine how the country will deal with "thousands of terrorists" bent on spilling Israeli blood.
Like Barak, Fogel blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the "new pattern of violence," accusing him of "actively encouraging terrorist activity by the use of civilian vehicles."
Barak cancelled a scheduled meeting in London with British counterpart Tony Blair to head home for the cabinet session.
Some 220 people have been killed, the overwhelming majority Palestinians at the hands of Israeli troops, since a provocative visit by hardline Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem on September 28 – JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
