OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 16 December 2003 — A flurry of international diplomacy yielded plans yesterday for US-brokered talks between Israel and the Palestinians and a new round of negotiations to coax militants into a ceasefire.
The new initiatives moved forward despite fresh violence in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces raided a refugee camp and killed two unarmed Palestinians.
US State Department official David Satterfield arranged a meeting yesterday between senior Israeli and Palestinian officials after a weekend of intensive efforts to restart a stalled US-backed peace “road map”.
US and Palestinian officials said the official reason for the talks was to find ways to ease a Palestinian economic crisis. But Israeli sources said it could also pave the way for a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qorei.
“Whatever they end up discussing, the good thing is that the two sides are talking,” a Western diplomat said. He cautioned, however, that expectations for significant progress were low.
Egyptian mediators, meanwhile, planned a new round of negotiations with militants today after talks in Cairo on suspending attacks against Israel collapsed last week, Palestinian sources said. A cease-fire is seen as crucial to reviving the road map.
The two-day talks, to be held in Gaza City, will involve Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other factions that have spearheaded a suicide bombing campaign during a three-year-old uprising.
Qorei and Egyptian mediators had been pushing militants to accept a full cease-fire to halt all attacks on Israelis, but Hamas - which wanted Israel to reciprocate - refused. The talks broke down on Dec. 7.
“We have not given up. We will continue to work to reach a comprehensive cease-fire,” an Egyptian official told Reuters. A Palestinian source said two major generals would head the Egyptian delegation.
Underlining the difficulties of restarting peace efforts, Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians trying to sneak into Israel from the Gaza Strip and troops fought gunbattles with militants during a raid into a refugee camp overnight. The two were killed when troops fired on a group approaching Gaza’s border fence with Israel.
The shooting occurred as soldiers backed by tanks and bulldozers demolished 10 houses in a predawn raid into southern Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp, witnesses said.
