OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 16 June — A meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials to review a two-day old cease-fire, together with a representative of the US Central Intelligence Agency, ended yesterday in disagreement, Israeli public radio reported.
It said the Israeli side demanded that the Palestinians arrest members of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, accusing them of preparing anti-Israeli attacks. The Palestinians rejected the demand, and accused the Israelis of violating the cease-fire brokered Wednesday by US mediator and CIA chief George Tenet, the radio said.
Sporadic clashes meanwhile continued in the Palestinian territories, notably in the West Bank where Palestinian officials said Israeli troops fired rubber bullets at demonstrators protesting the cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accused the Palestinians of not respecting the truce concluded Wednesday, saying that violence had not stopped. And he warned that if acts of violence continued Israel would have no choice but to “counter these attacks and strike at the authors.”
A statement issued by Sharon’s office warned that Israel would not implement the further stages laid down by Tenet “as long as the Palestinian Authority does not respect its commitments and absolute calm does not prevail”. The Tenet agreement, based on the Mitchell report on the Palestinian uprising now in its ninth month, calls for the lifting of the Israeli blockade and an end to the violence, followed by a cooling off period and confidence building measures aimed at the resumption of talks leading to a settlement.
Palestinian International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath accused the Israelis of dragging their feet. “Implementation is slow because the Israelis are reimposing measures which were supposed to have been annulled,” he said.
“The Tenet accord obliges the Israelis to visibly withdraw their forces from the edges of Palestinian-controlled areas, but we do not see that happening,” he said.
Seventeen Palestinians were injured by rubber bullets fired by Israeli soldiers in clashes across the West Bank, Palestinian officials said. The clashes erupted during protests near Palestinian towns organized by the Islamic and Nationalist Forces, a coalition of 13 Palestinian movements which includes Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah and the Hamas. The demonstrators condemned “US pressure” on the Palestinians to accept the cease-fire plan and oppose any security cooperation with Israel, while stressing the need to continue the Palestinian intifada.
