Three Palestinian women were killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Gaza Strip Saturday, following a relative respite in the long-running conflict, and amid growing international diplomatic efforts to halt the Palestinian uprising, said reports.
The deaths came as Israel and the Palestinians prepared their answers to US proposals on a way out of their crisis after tense security talks with CIA chief George Tenet on Friday, said AFP.
The Palestinian news agency, WAFA, reported that an Israeli tank fired a shell which exploded near their tent close to the Jewish settlement of Netzarim.
Palestinian hospital officials said four others were injured, one seriously.
An Israeli army spokesman told Haaretz newspaper that Israeli soldiers had “fired at two armed Palestinians in the area who were firing on an IDF outpost near Netzarim.”
The spokesman said that the two had been in open terrain, claiming that Israeli soldiers had no knowledge of three women being killed.
Mohammed Al Rash, who lives 30 meters (yards) from the tent that was hit, told Reuters that three tanks shells were fired and that one had hit the structure in which the Bedouin family lived.
"We were surprised by the tankfire because we had not heard any shooting nearby," he told Reuters.
The three victims were identified as Salmiya Al Malalha, 56, Hekmat Atallah Al Malalha, 17 and Nasra Salem Al Malalha, 65, according to WAFA.
Meanwhile, security chiefs on both sides will meet again on Sunday, to give their responses to a set of US proposals aimed at halting more than eight months of conflict, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.
Israeli public Saturday television revealed the main points of the US document drafted by Tenet, said Haaretz.
They include, for the Israelis, a halt to attacks against autonomous Palestinian sectors, the withdrawal of Israeli forces back to pre-Intifada (September 28, 2000) positions and the minimization of measures harming people and goods.
For the Palestinians, the US recommendations focus on the immediate arrest of activists from the Islamic Jihad and Hamas movements, the confiscation of mortars in the autonomous Palestinian territories, and a halt to attacks against Jewish settlements, Haaretz newspaper said.
But head of the preventive security in the West Bank, Jibril Rjoub, said on Saturday that arresting Intifada activists was not on the agenda during Friday’s security meeting in Ramallah.
The US document presented at the meeting "includes a calendar for implementing the Mitchell committee report on the violence," a senior Israeli official told AFP, asking not to be identified.
The Mitchell report has called for an immediate ceasefire, an Israeli freeze on settlement-building and full Palestinian efforts to prevent "terrorism" in order to move back to the negotiating table.
The official said Israel "basically agrees with this plan and demands the Palestinian ceasefire to be effective, which it isn't at the moment."
The Palestinian head of preventive security for the West Bank, Jibril Rjoub, described Friday's meeting as "very tense," without elaborating further, and put the onus on Israel to guarantee a return to calm in the region after Friday's meeting.
Tenet was in Cairo on Saturday for brief talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but was expected back in Ramallah on Sunday for the new security meeting.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, arrived in the region Saturday for a two-day visit.
The EU has provided Arafat with "a team of advisers to help him respect the ceasefire," with senior Palestinian officials, describing them as the "observers" they have long demanded and claiming the move as a victory.
Israel however does not recognize the team, which has set up offices in the hotspots of Beit Jala in the West Bank and Rafah in the Gaza Strip, as observers.
"We are behind Europe contributing efforts to ensure the ceasefire is respected, but we don't accept the presence of observers, a Palestinian demand which the Mitchell report did not support," a top Israeli official told AFP.
UN chief Kofi Annan told reporters his tour would start in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, would go on to Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and "end up in Jerusalem and Gaza."
"As long as the ceasefire is holding, there is a chance for political movement, but the two parties can't do it alone" because so much mistrust had grown up in recent months, said Annan's spokesman.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The latest suicide bombing raises that toll by at least 20. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s. The most recent Israeli tank attack raises that death toll to 453.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
