Palestinian child killed by Israelis

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By a Staff Writer
Publication Date: 
Mon, 2001-06-18 04:19

GAZA, 18 June — Israeli troops shot dead a 12-year-old Palestinian yesterday hours after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan tried to arrange Israeli and Palestinian talks aimed at shoring up a four-day-old cease-fire.


Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli soldiers shot dead Ali Abu Shaweesh in Khan Younis near the Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim where stone-throwing clashes took place throughout the day. Three others were wounded, they added.


Shaweesh was the fourth Palestinian killed since the truce began Wednesday. One Israeli has also been killed, but overall Israelis and Palestinians agree violence has subsided since US CIA Director George Tenet hammered out the cease-fire.


Earlier, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Annan had proposed a meeting between Israeli leaders and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. But the suggestion that Israel move to talks with Arafat just days into the shaky truce quickly caused cracks to surface in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “national unity government”.


“The offer was done by the secretary-general (on Saturday) night, and Sharon and myself were rather busy...so probably during the day we shall sit down and try to decide which is the best way to handle this proposal,” Peres said in English after meeting Annan. Israeli media reports told a different story, saying Peres had angrily confronted Sharon at the weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday after the prime minister ordered him not to meet Arafat.


Before flying to London, Annan said in Jerusalem that the cease-fire is “not the end of the road” but “an important element of the whole process” defined by the Mitchell report. Among other things, the Mitchell report calls for an end to building by Jewish settlers.


All Syrian troops to quit Beirut


Lebanese security sources said yesterday that Syria will pull all its troops out of Beirut within 48 hours. Syria has moved troops out of at least 12 major bases and several other smaller positions since Thursday.


In the first official Syrian comment, parliament Speaker Abdel-Qader Qaddourah said the troop shift showed cooperation between Beirut and Damascus, which he said had helped save Lebanon from itself during the 1975-1990 civil war.


Witnesses saw Syrian troops handing over a large base on the seafront in west Beirut to the Lebanese Army while others loaded equipment onto trucks at nearby positions. More troops were seen leaving another large position in the mountains above Beirut.

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