Two Palestinians were killed in the early hours of Monday morning while preparing a bomb in a field not far from Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium where the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games is scheduled to take place Monday evening, said Haaretz newspaper.
A distinct possibility is that the two – both residents of the West Bank city of Bethlehem – were preparing a bomb aimed to go off around the opening ceremony.
"The bodies of the two were found in a field and it appears they were killed in a 'work accident' while preparing an explosive device," said a Jerusalem police spokesman.
The bodies of the two were discovered near the Jerusalem Arab village of Beit Sefafa, the police said.
The police assessment is also that the two did not have any intention of acting as suicide bombers but were preparing the bomb to be placed somewhere.
The identities of the two men killed – one aged 19 and the other 21 – are known to the security forces.
The Maccabiah opening ceremony, which begins at 8:30pm, will be heavily guarded with some 1,000 police securing Teddy Stadium.
Attendance at the 16th Maccabiah is down dramatically as a result of the security situation with many of the participants having decided to stay home.
As a result, some of the sporting events have been cancelled and others have been scaled back, said the paper.
Monday’s incident came only hours after Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres returned to Israel after meeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Egypt Sunday, with little hope on the horizon that the latest diplomatic effort would bear fruit.
Peres said after the talks that Arafat had to honor a pledge of "seven days of zero violence" before the two could embark on further US-brokered peace moves, said AFP.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later said on Israeli television Sunday that there could be no political discussions with the Palestinians before the “violence stops.”
"We are all in favor of the peace process, but it can only happen if there is a total halt to the violence," Sharon said.
His comments came amid news of further unrest, with military sources reporting that Palestinians opened fire on a school bus carrying settler children near the Einav settlement south of the West Bank town of Nablus, said Haaretz.
There were no casualties in that or two other incidents, in which Palestinians fired on the Psagot settlement near Ramallah and on the settler area in the center of Hebron in the southern West Bank.
Sharon's advisor, Dore Gold, further poured cold water on the chances of any breakthrough, condemning the "pursuit of terrorism."
"During the last hours, Palestinians have tried to kill Israeli settlers but also their children," he told AFP, referring to the school bus shooting.
"The main message of the Peres-Arafat meeting is that there will be no negotiations while Israelis are gunned down," he added.
Israel's security forces had already gone on alert for possible Palestinian attacks, while its troops abducted an Islamic militant in one incident on the West Bank and fought gunbattles with armed Palestinians in another.
Israel also decided to establish new communities in a Negev desert area the previous government considered giving to the Palestinians in a land-swap, despite warnings it could hurt chances of a future peace deal.
Two weeks ago, US Secretary of State Colin Powell forged an outline to implement peace steps that calls for seven violence-free days, a six-week cooling off period and then several months of confidence-building measures.
But Powell's timeline is intentionally vague on several points and is largely dependent upon Sharon's interpretation of Arafat's behavior, according to AFP.
Numerous pitfalls remain, said the agency.
For his part, Arafat, who left the Cairo meeting with Peres without making a statement, has previously said that the period of zero violence has already been completed.
Meanwhile, the outgoing US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying Arafat has let the situation in the Middle East "get out of control."
"We made mistakes, the Israelis made mistakes," he said in an interview from Israel. "But what I do blame Arafat for his resorting to violence when he couldn't get his way or found himself in a tight corner after Camp David."
"He allowed the situation to get out of control," said Indyk, who Saturday ended his second two-year term as ambassador to Israel.
After the Egyptian-brokered diplomatic activity in Cairo Sunday, Peres told reporters that "war is not an option" and pledged that Israel would continue to negotiate with Arafat.
But analysts say Egypt and other Arab countries fear Israel will resort to tougher military action against the Palestinians that could even spark a regional war – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
