WASHINGTON/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 8 March — President George W. Bush announced yesterday that US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni will return to the region next week to try to break the cycle of escalating violence that left another 12 Palestinians dead.
Zinni’s aim would be to discuss a cease-fire plan by CIA chief George Tenet, the recommendations of the international Mitchell Commission and a recent proposal by Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, as a roadmap for peace.
Omani Foreign Minister Yousuf ibn Alawi Abdullah, whose country currently holds the Gulf Cooperation Council’s rotating presidency, said the six GCC states support the Saudi initiative. “Prince Abdullah’s ideas represent the ideas of Oman and other GCC states. The Kingdom’s proposals are a representation of the joint GCC thoughts,” the Omani minister said after talks with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa.
According to a survey conducted by Radio Israel, 52 percent of Israelis support Prince Abdullah’s peace proposals.
Notwithstanding the urge for peace by his people, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent his troops and tanks into two Palestinian camps in the West Bank town of Tulkarm. Helicopter gunships launched two missile strikes at Nour El-Shams refugee camp as the troops moved in. Nine Palestinians were killed in the air attacks and fighting, two of them ambulance workers. A member of the Islamic Jihad died in a gunbattle in the northern West Bank and another Palestinian was killed in an ambush on soldiers in the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian blew himself up in the lobby of a hotel in Ariel, one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank, killing himself and wounding 10 people.
There was a defiant message too from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat that no amount of Israeli military pressure would end his people’s 17-month-old uprising against the occupation of territory they want for an independent state. “If they believe there is anyone in this land who fears their tanks or planes... they are wrong,” Arafat told reporters.
The European Union insisted that Israel lift a three-month-old siege on Arafat in his West Bank headquarters to attend an Arab League summit in Beirut later this month.
Israeli aircraft hit security targets in Bethlehem, Hebron and nearby Halhoul in the West Bank, leaving piles of smoldering rubble but causing no deaths. About 30 people were hurt in four Israeli attacks.
