RAMALLAH/CAIRO, 7 July 2003 — Three masked gunmen shot dead a Palestinian man, believed to have been an Israeli collaborator, outside Ramallah civil court, witnesses said. Kaed Abu Shilbaya, 35, arrested by Palestinian police, was due to go on trial for theft.
Abu Shilbaya lived in Israel for several years before returning to Palestinian territory in 1997. The killers got away after shooting him at point-blank range.
Meanwhile, the radical Palestinian leader Nayef Hawatmeh raised with Egyptian officials the need to consolidate a truce and unite Palestinian factions before resuming peace negotiations with Israel, his faction said.
Hawatmeh, secretary general of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), met here with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, according to a DFLP official, Fahd Suleiman.
The intelligence chief, who helped encourage the DFLP and other Palestinian factions to halt attacks on Israelis for three months, said it was highly important to consolidate the truce, the DFLP official said.
The Egyptian official said a consolidated truce would allow for constituting “a unified Palestinian body in order to prepare the Palestinians for negotiations on establishing a state,” according to Fahd Suleiman.
Meanwhile, Hawatemeh charged that Israel was violating the truce and said all efforts had to be made “to unify Palestinian ranks and constitute a national unity government, in order to begin negotiations with Israel.” The DFLP was among four Palestinian factions late last month to have declared a three-month truce.
