OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 17 March — A senior US envoy pressed his bid yesterday to halt the violence between Israel and the Palestinians, with hopes fueled by a promising start to his talks and the territories’ calmest night in weeks.
Anthony Zinni conferred with senior Palestinian negotiators in the West Bank town of Ramallah after a round of cease-fire discussions with both sides Thursday and Friday that he described as “extremely positive.”
As he pursued his mission, a rare moment of calm settled on Israel and its occupied territories after one of the deadliest spurts of fighting in the nearly 18-month-old Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The Israeli Army said no major incidents were reported overnight and for much of yesterday morning until a Palestinian civilian was killed by soldiers in the West Bank town of Hebron. “It was the quietest night in several weeks,” an army spokeswoman told AFP.
Zinni, the special envoy of US President George W. Bush, arrived Thursday hoping to broker a truce in the spiraling bloodshed that has claimed more than 1,500 lives, some 250 in the past two weeks alone. The retired Marine corps general met in Ramallah with a Palestinian Authority delegation led by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qorei and Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.
Nabil Amr, Palestinian minister for parliamentary affairs, said the group was seeking a US guarantee that Israel stays out of Palestinian areas, with the possibility of sending in international observers. Nabil Abu Rudeina, one of Arafat’s top aides, described Zinni’s visit as a “new opportunity for the peace process” and added: “The next 24 hours will test whether the Israeli government is serious.”
Abu Rudeina said Zinni must not confine himself to security matters. “A political meeting with the Israelis must take place either before or at the same time as security contacts,” he said. The talks were held in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s compound, Palestinian sources said. Zinni’s third bid in the past four months to restore peace, launched with Washington intensifying the pressure on Israel to halt hostilities, has drawn encouraging responses from both parties to the conflict.
The Israelis marked his arrival by partially withdrawing their forces from Ramallah and other towns on the West Bank and Gaza Strip they had seized earlier in the week in their biggest military push in Palestinian territory since 1967. A senior Sharon aide said the Israelis told Zinni he was prepared to start peace talks once a cease-fire was set and activate a joint Israeli-Palestinian commission for the first time since he came to power a year ago. Arafat also welcomed Zinni’s efforts.
European Union leaders added their own voice to the drive for peace, calling for urgent implementation of a UN resolution that mentions for the first time a Palestinian state and demanding the lifting of travel curbs on Arafat. They reaffirmed their support for the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside an Israel secure within internationally recognized borders. “(The EU supports) the creation of a democratic, viable and independent Palestinian state, bringing to an end the occupation of territories which began in 1967,” Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique told reporters after the 15 leaders discussed the Middle East crisis.
About 40,000 mourners marched through Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza for the funeral of a Palestinian mother, her three children and a nephew killed on Friday when a land mine exploded under a donkey cart in which they were riding.
Jordan’s King Abdallah reaffirmed his backing for a Saudi peace initiative for the Middle East, saying Israel will have security once it resolves its differences with its Arab neighbors, not just the Palestinians, in a newspaper interview published yesterday.
“Beyond solving the conflict with the Palestinians,” Abdallah told Le Figaro newspaper in Paris, that the Saudi initiative “offers Israelis the chance to integrate in the region” and to resolve “its differences with its direct neighbors the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.”
Meanwhile, several thousand Jordanians marched in the capital yesterday in one of the biggest public displays of support for the Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. More than 10,000 protesters took to the streets of Amman, chanting “Allah-u-Akbar” (God is Great) and calling on the Palestinian resistance group Hamas to wage more attacks against Israel.
