U.S.-led cease-fire talks ended without an understanding late Sunday but both Israelis and Palestinians said they would meet again Monday, focusing on new American proposals aimed at bridging their differences and halting 18 months of bloodshed.
Violence raged despite the cease-fire efforts. A 19-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip overnight. The man was killed during an Israeli military incursion into Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said early Monday.
Three other Palestinians were injured in the Israeli operation led by 15 tanks and two bulldozers which moved several hundred metres into Rafah near the Egyptian border.
An Israeli settler was shot in Hebron Monday morning. Earlier, Palestinians threw at least one explosive device and fired at Israeli soldiers in Hebron's casbah. No one was wounded in that incident.
Meeting
U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni convened Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs to try to settle the final differences over implementing a truce plan negotiated last year by CIA director George Tenet.
Palestinian and Israeli officials said Zinni presented proposals to bridge the disagreements between the two sides, and the two sides were to present their responses at another meeting of security heads on Monday.
No details of the U.S. proposals were made public. But an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said those proposals were constructive, reported AP.
Palestinian West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub said the Palestinian leadership would discuss the proposals on Monday and give its reply to Zinni in another meeting.
"We sat with the Americans -- and the Israelis sat with the Americans separately. We were given an American compromise document," said Mohammed Dahlan, chief of Palestinian Preventive Security in the Gaza Strip. "We will study it and give our response to it in a meeting that will be held Monday. The Israelis were also given that same document," Dahlan said, without giving details on the compromise proposal.
Arafat
Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will convene the expanded security cabinet Monday to decide whether Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will be permitted to attend the Arab League Summit in Beirut on March 27-28.
Sharon said Sunday that the discussion would be based on the outcome of talks held later in the day when the joint Israeli-Palestinian security committee meets again. With a truce in place, the Israelis said they would let Arafat out for talks with US Vice President Dick Cheney as well as the Arab summit that opens Wednesday in Beirut. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
