JENIN, West Bank, 29 January 2003 — Seven Palestinians were killed yesterday during Israeli raids on Jenin and Gaza, as Israel chose a new government in a vote expected to be won by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on a tough security pledge.
Sharon has vowed not to talk peace until Palestinians end their 28-month uprising against Israel’s occupation of the territories.
This pledge that has attracted more support than Labour leader Amram Mitzna’s plan to renew peace talks with the Palestinians and quit the Gaza Strip.
In a sign of Sharon’s tough policy, Israeli armored vehicles stormed into Jenin in the northern West Bank early yesterday They immediately ran into heavy resistance from armed Palestinians.
Four Palestinian men were killed by tank-borne troops in the heavy clashes that erupted, while an AFP photographer was shot in the leg.
Palestinian officials said two boys aged 13 and 11 were also wounded by Israeli sniper fire in the town’s refugee camp, devastated in an Israel invasion in April.
In the northern Gaza Strip, three Palestinians were killed in an explosion overnight in Beit Lahia, Palestinian security officials said. One of them was a member of the armed wing of the Hamas, and the other two were the teenage children of another fighter.
Palestinian officials said the blast was caused by an Israeli helicopter attack, but Israeli military sources quoted in the media suggested it could have been a premature explosion of a bomb the fighters were preparing.
Meanwhile in Cairo, Hamas said inter-Palestinian talks had failed to reach agreement on a proposed moratorium on attacks against Israeli civilians and reiterated its position that resistance was "not negotiable".
"We regret that the Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo failed to reach agreement on a final statement expressing the common denominators which unite them," a senior Hamas leader said.
Palestinians fear bloody raids such as yesterday’s will go on when Sharon is re-elected, but despite being tipped to win up to 33 of the 120 seats in Parliament, Sharon aces tough horse-trading after the elections to form a new government.
Sharon wants to build a broad coalition with centrist parties, and intends to make an emotional plea to Labour — set to win around 19 seats, down from 25 — to come on board to form a stable government to tackle the intifada and Israel’s worst ever economic crisis.
But Mitzna has refused to join any government headed by Sharon, as he marks his distance from his hawkish predecessor Binyamin Ben Eliezer who served 20 months as the right-winger’s defense minister.
Sharon has therefore concentrated his efforts on wooing the upstart secular party Shinui, tipped to increase its seats from six to 16 on an anti-religious ticket calling for subsidies to ultra-Orthodox families who refuse military service to be slashed. (Agencies)
