OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 16 August — Security talks between Israel and the Palestinians scheduled for late yesterday were postponed due to serious differences of views, Israeli sources said. The meeting, set to discuss a phased withdrawal from certain Palestinian areas, had been put off until next week.
Israeli public radio said earlier that Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer would meet with Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razaq Al-Yahya to discuss the “Gaza First” withdrawal plan.
In Ramallah, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday that any Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza should also include a pullout from the West Bank or parts of it.
Speaking at a press conference on the results of his Wednesday night meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Erekat said the Palestinian team made it clear they would not accept withdrawal from Gaza only.
In another development, intense talks between Palestinian factions to work out a common policy on continuing the uprising have run aground.
“Communication and talks with Hamas have failed,” International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath told AFP. He said Hamas had backed away from articles in the document endorsed by other factions, including Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, which called for an end to attacks inside Israel and the creation of a state inside the 1967 borders.
Earlier, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said Israel totally rejects a Palestinian proposal for groups to confine their attacks to the occupied territories and target only soldiers and settlers.
Meanwhile, trying to salvage the peace process, a senior Palestinian Authority official yesterday announced a major finance reform that would help meet US demands for reviving peace talks.
Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said a holding company had been formed to consolidate all Palestinian Authority funds and assets under a single umbrella, an anti-corruption move which may help satisfy the key mediator in the conflict.
In the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, Israeli troops shot dead a five-year-old Palestinian boy. Ayman Faris was killed and two others were wounded when Israeli soldiers stationed at a Jewish settlement west of the town opened fire at residents.
Local people said the Israeli soldiers suddenly opened fire in a quiet residential area in the western part of the town. The boy was playing near his house when one of the bullets hit his head and killed him.
Witnesses said the Israeli soldiers wounded two other Palestinian young men who went to pick up the boy bleeding on the ground. They said troops fired at ambulances that tried to save the boy. Two more Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops elsewhere yesterday
In Nablus, the Israeli Army arrested for the second time the wife of a wanted Palestinian from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
Hiba Attari, the wife of Ibrahim Attari, who figures on Israel’s wanted list, was arrested by soldiers at a house where she was staying in Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
