TEL AVIV/GAZA CITY, 10 September 2006 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair met Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert yesterday on a visit aimed at encouraging Israelis and Palestinians to take the first steps back toward the negotiating table. Blair arrived for talks with Olmert and other Israeli officials, leaving behind him the feuding in Britain’s ruling party that forced him to concede this week that he will leave office within a year.
Blair is also due to hold talks in the next few days with Palestinian officials, sources in the region say. “The key is to try to get the momentum back so that proper discussions can begin between the players,” said Blair’s spokesman said. He added that the trip would not be about “big statements or big agreements.” It may not seem a favorable time to attempt to restart the stalled Middle East peace process..
Meanwhile, three Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli troops yesterday during an Israeli Army invasion in the southern Gaza Strip, medical and security sources said. The Islamic Jihad militant, Ziad Abu Saada, 23, sustained serious injuries as the Israeli force surrounded a house in the Khoza area east of Khan Younis, the sources said. Two civilian bystanders were also wounded by Israeli fire.
The Israeli force, backed by tanks and armored cars, had pushed some 800 meters into the Gaza Strip, prompting sporadic clashes with militants, security sources said. The Israeli Army has been conducting invasion in southern Gaza since Wednesday as part of a major offensive it launched after the capture of a soldier by Gaza-based militants in June. An Israeli military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv denied that there had been any exchanges of fire in the Khan Younis area yesterday.
Witnesses said that resistance fighters clashed with the Israeli soldiers who invaded the village in the morning and uprooted farmlands and destroyed several greenhouses. They added that four bulldozers backed by ten tanks rolled into the area under cover of heavy gunfire toward the civilians’ houses. Al-Shohda School of Khoza was partially damaged due to the heavy Israeli fire.
