OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 16 July 2003 — Palestinian groups and Israel warned yesterday that time was running out for the peace process after a fatal stabbing in a Tel Aviv bar cast a new shadow over efforts to end the decades-old conflict.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of the mainstream Fatah, claimed responsibility for the knife attack which left a club doorman dead and two others injured Monday night, prompting Israeli accusations that the Palestinians were not doing enough to crack down on militants.

“Time is running out and until now the Palestinian Authority has not taken any decisive action. This is an opportunity for the Palestinians to make good on their declarations,” said a spokesman for Ariel Sharon, accompanying the premier on his trip to London.

The road map for peace agreed upon by both sides calls on Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his government to dismantle armed militants.

Despite a lull in the 33-month-old bloodshed, smoldering violence and breaches of joint security agreements have prompted each side to accuse the other of trying to scupper peace efforts.

Sharon, on a fence-mending trip to Great Britain, has also made clear that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was one of the main forces hampering the progress of the roadmap.

“The prime minister will say that Arafat remains the major obstacle on the road to peace because of his relentless efforts to undermine the process and Abu Mazen (Abbas’ nom de guerre),” an Israeli source said ahead of Sharon’s talks with the British opposition leader.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath scorned Israel’s drive to sideline the veteran leader and said during a visit to Budapest: “We would also have liked to exclude Sharon himself, but this is not the way to peace.”

Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad, a hard-line armed group, warned in a statement yesterday that its patience was also being tested by Israel’s failure to free Palestinian prisoners.

It cited “repeated Zionist violations” such as “stopping civilians at checkpoints, arresting them and not releasing Palestinian prisoners and especially detainees of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and trespassing on Islamic and Palestinian holy sites”.

“The armed wing of Islamic Jihad in Palestine stresses its patience will not last,” it warned.

Major Palestinian militant groups — including Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad — announced late last month a three-month freeze on anti-Israeli attacks.

— With input from Agencies