GAZA, 29 December — The Israeli Army said yesterday it had killed a suspected Palestinian bomber in the Gaza Strip and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed a peace plan by his foreign minister as a non-starter.
The Islamic Jihad group claimed the slain Palestinian as its own and said he was killed after ambushing soldiers and Jewish settlers at a major road junction in the Palestinian-run area. It appeared to be the group’s first attack since one of its leaders said last week it was suspending attacks inside Israel.
The Israeli Army said it had lifted its cordon around the West Bank town of Bethlehem for continuing Christmas festivities. But Israel kept its ban on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat visiting the town unless he went beyond calling for an end to attacks on Israel and handed over men the Jewish state blames for killing a Cabinet minister.
Islamic Jihad said a member of its Jerusalem Brigades, Mahmoud Al-Bore’i, was part of a group that ambushed Israeli forces at the Karni-Netzarim junction in Gaza early in the day. "The occupation forces responded. A clash ensued in which the enemy took casualties and Mahmoud ascended to martyrdom. The rest of the group returned safely to base," said a statement faxed to Reuters in Beirut.
Israel’s army said the man wore an explosives belt and meant to carry out an attack. He also had an automatic rifle and anti-tank rocket. Palestinian officials declined comment.
In another incident, Israeli soldiers opened fire and seriously injured a Palestinian woman in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, medical sources said. There were no clashes or shooting before the incident, witnesses said.
Israeli police, meanwhile, said they had found the body of a Jewish settler missing for 10 days in the West Bank and a Palestinian had confessed to killing him and hiding the corpse in a cave. The motive for the killing remained unclear.
Earlier the army announced it had "ended the encirclement of Bethlehem, in accordance with government guidelines, for the occasion of Christmas". Palestinians in Bethlehem said the cordon had been only partly lifted and Palestinian access to Israeli-controlled Jerusalem was still blocked. Arafat remained stranded in the Israeli-blockaded West Bank city of Ramallah, some 20 km (12 miles) to the north.
Israel announced the Bethlehem measure late on Thursday after a day of relative peace and Israeli-Palestinian talks on ending 15 months of bloodshed in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
It came too late for the Dec. 24 Western Rite Christmas Eve mass, from which Arafat was barred, but it could ease travel to Bethlehem for other festivities, including next month’s Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christmas celebrations.
Arafat told reporters in Ramallah that Israel was trying to destroy the strong relationship between Muslims and Christians by banning him from the Greek Orthdox Christmas in Bethlehem on Jan. 6. Asked about the Israeli restrictions on his movements, Arafat said: "Don’t forget that all the Palestinian people are under siege".
The relative peace notwithstanding, Prime Minister Sharon dashed hopes for peace plan his Foreign Minister, Simon Peres and the Palestinians have been working on. "Nothing will come of this plan. It no longer exists. The fact it was presented to the public sealed its burial," Sharon was quoted in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper as saying.
"It is an imaginary and inapplicable plan because there is no chance that the Palestinians will cease their actions within eight weeks," he said, speaking at a meeting of his Likud party the previous evening.
