Israel's foreign ministry on Monday officially denied that its chief, Shimon Peres, had accused a senior army official of wanting kill Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a ministry spokesman said.
"The Israeli army carries out the orders of the government and the government has neither the intention nor the desire to target Mr Arafat," the spokesman told AFP, adding that the reports in the Israeli press arose out of a misunderstanding.
The mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot said Sunday that Peres was convinced that the army's second-in-command, General Moshe Yahalon, wanted to liquidate Arafat.
Another government official said the paper's journalist had merely been speculating.
The daily said on Sunday that Peres opposed any move to do away with Arafat.
"Suppose we liquidate him, what will happen afterwards? In his place we will have Hamas or Islamic Jihad," the paper quoted him as saying, referring to two hardline Islamist groups which want to see Israel wiped off the map.
"Arafat recognizes the existence of Israel, he wants to talk to us and be accepted by the West, while the others [Islamists] would like to create a single state that stretches from Iraq to the Mediterranean," Peres said -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
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