RAMALLAH/BEIRUT, 30 July — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said yesterday he is pushing for a cease-fire among hard-line factions despite last week’s devastating Israeli air raid on Gaza, as Israel promised to alleviate Palestinian suffering by handing over frozen funds.
In Paris, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres renewed calls for the speedy organization of an international conference and vowed to pursue talks with the Palestinian Authority. Asked when such a conference could take place, Peres said: “Quicker would be better.”
Israel’s diplomatic efforts to contain the fall-out of a deadly air raid on July 22 in Gaza which killed a Hamas military wing leader and 14 other people, including nine children, were stepped up as Arafat said Palestinians should move away from their devastating bombings. The “peace process is the only way forward ... to finish the Israeli occupation and have a Palestinian state far from violence, far from state terrorism, bloodshed and far from suicide bombings,” he said after meeting US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson here.
He said the Palestinians were still trying to patch together a cease-fire among the radical groups that have been attacking Israel throughout the 22-month Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. “We reached that agreement but the agreement was completely destroyed by an F-16 attack in Gaza. But we’ll continue our efforts regarding this issue,” Arafat said.
Palestinian Authority officials said the air raid derailed talks between militant elements of Arafat’s Fatah movement and groups like Hamas to secure a unilateral cease-fire. That claim was lent weight by the head of the Israeli Parliament’s foreign and defense committee, Labour deputy Haim Ramon, who presented the committee with a text of a cease-fire call that, he claimed, militant groups within Arafat’s Fatah party had been about to issue when Israel launched the internationally condemned air raid.
The unsigned document presented by Ramon, a rival to Labour leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer who green-lighted the Gaza attack, appealed to all armed groups to halt attacks on Israeli civilians, including in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel has made conciliatory gestures toward the Palestinians since the controversial raid, in a bid to mitigate international and regional anger over the bloody event. An Israeli Finance Ministry spokesman said the green light had been given to disburse 70 million shekels ($14.7 million) in withheld customs duties and taxes. He said the sum would be transferred to the account of newly appointed Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad within the next day or two. Palestinian Authority officials had said a meeting was to take place yesterday between Fayad and his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom, but the session failed to take place, with Israelis saying it had not been confirmed.
In another development, the disputed border area of Shebaa in southern Lebanon was subjected to shelling and heavy anti-aircraft gunfire yesterday as Israeli troops intensified their patrols, Lebanese police reported in Beirut. Israeli artillery shelled the outskirts of Shebaa and fired heavy anti-aircraft machine guns near the village Kfar Chouba, which leads to the area of Bastra at the edge of Shebaa,
The police said Israeli troops also intensified their patrols yesterday near the Metulla-Abbassiyeh area and east of Shebaa, while helicopters hovered over Shebaa Farms. According to the police there were no reports of any Hezbollah fighters movement in the area which allegedly usually triggers such Israeli shelling. But a huge poster with the word “Terrorism” in Arabic, which was erected over the weekend by the Hezbollah movement near Shebaa, raised the curiosity of Israeli soldiers. (The Independent)
