GAZA CITY, 15 March 2008 — Israel and the Palestinian Authority yesterday resumed high-level talks after a two-week hiatus, meeting with a top US envoy amid mounting US criticism of settlement construction.
US displeasure with the continued Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank was stressed during the three-hour talks, an official close to the Israeli delegation said.
The meeting, to discuss implementation of the stalled 2003 peace road map, was the first at senior level since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended talks on March 2 to protest an Israeli blitz on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
“We examined areas where the parties are not meeting their commitments and the reasons why, and explored ways to accelerate the process and make the parties’ implementation of their road map obligations more effective,” the US Embassy said.
“Our goal remains the fulfillment of the parties’ road map obligations,” added the statement, issued after the closed-door meeting at a Jerusalem hotel.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak did not attend, but sent an aide to the talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and US Lt. Gen. William Fraser, who was appointed in January to oversee compliance with the road map.
The US side described the talks as “cordial but frank.” On the eve of the talks, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni admitted during a US visit that settlement construction was unhelpful to the peace process. “Basically, I don’t think that it helps,” she said in a speech at Harvard University.
“Israel is not living up to its commitments to do what it can to facilitate the lives of the Palestinians in the West Bank,” a diplomat familiar with the talks said.
The Palestinians also faced criticism at the meeting, with Israel saying they were not doing enough to prevent terrorism. Last week, a Palestinian gunman mowed down eight students at a religious school in Jerusalem.
Senior officials within the Israeli Army told the Israeli Haaretz daily yesterday that the weeklong lull in fighting came in the light of the continued firing of homemade rockets at southern Israel.
Israeli warplanes targeted a rocket-launcher site in the northern of the Gaza Strip yesterday, but there was no immediate reports of casualties. Earlier Palestinian groups claimed responsibility for firing four homemade rockets into Israel.
On Thursday, dozens of Palestinian homemade rockets landed in different Israeli cities and other military sites while in response the Israeli Army responded with three raids, a surface-to-surface missile and two aerial strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Thursday’s strikes, which effectively ended a tacit five-day truce around the coastal strip, came just hours after the army killed four West Bank gunmen.
An Israeli source said the US delegation questioned the timing of the killings but recognized Israel’s right to defend itself. Two of the four gunmen were senior leaders of armed groups.
— With input from agencies
