GAZA CITY, 27 January — The Palestinian Authority yesterday called for a halt to attacks on Israel as Israeli troops assassinated another Hamas activist at a roadside checkpoint. The Palestinian leadership called on Palestinians to maintain a "comprehensive cease-fire and stop operations against Israel and Israelis". "These operations do not serve our national cause at all," the leadership said in a statement after the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Israeli troops killed the Hamas activist near the West Bank city of Ramallah. A Palestinian hospital official accused Israeli soldiers of letting the man, Nassar Abu Salim, 33, bleed to death after he was shot in the leg. A Hamas official called the killing an "ugly assassination." The Israeli Army said it was checking the incident. There were no reports of clashes at the scene.
Ramallah hospital director Husni Attari said Salim was hit in the thigh and arrived dead. "He was hit in a major artery but the wound was not deadly if it was tended to immediately...but he was left to bleed to death and ambulances were prevented from reaching him for 45 minutes," he said.
Sheikh Hassan Youssef, a Hamas leader in Ramallah, said that "Israeli soldiers carried out an ugly assassination against one of Hamas’ members."
The death was the latest bloodshed in a 16-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in which more than 1,000 people have been killed. The new wave of violence led UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to say the situation in the region looked "hopeless". "For the moment it looks hopeless but we must not give up hope," Annan told a news conference while visiting Iran. The situation is "tragic and very, very serious", he said.
Annan said "collective international action" was needed to convince all parties to return to the negotiating table.
Arafat called on the United States to do more to promote Middle East peace after President George W. Bush harshly criticized the Palestinian leader and suspended a cease-fire mission.
Arafat declined to comment on Bush’s remark that he was "very disappointed" with the Palestinian president’s efforts to end 16 months of conflict with Israel. But, asked in an interview with Reuters news agency whether Bush should be doing more to bring peace to the region, Arafat said: "No doubt."
"I have said to him that I started the peace process with his father, President Bush... I told him that I hope we will continue what was started," he said at his headquarters in Ramallah, where he has been confined by an Israeli military blockade since early December.
