[INTL] Israeli deadline nears

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Tuesday, October 2 10:40 AM SGT

Israeli deadline nears as violence continues unabated

JERUSALEM, Oct 2 (AFP) - The Israeli government was poised to decide Tuesday on how to respond to continued violence including a car bombing as an Israeli deadline was due to expire for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to halt the unrest.

The violence continued early Tuesday with Palestinians firing mortar shells at an Israeli industrial zone between the Gaza Strip and Israel, and aiming dozens of grenades at an Israeli army position near Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip without claiming any victims, a military source said.

The car bomb exploded in Jerusalem at the start of a Jewish holiday Monday without causing injuries but undermining an already shaky truce as the clock ticked away on the Israeli deadline of noon (0900 GMT) Tuesday.

The large bomb packed with assault rifle bullets went off near an industrial out-of-town shopping zone in west Jerusalem, blowing apart the booby-trapped car and setting several other vehicles ablaze, police said.

Nobody was injured by the explosion, although three people were suffering from shock, said police.

The blast was the first such attack in Israel itself since Arafat declared a ceasefire on September 18, promising to try to rein in militants attacking Israeli targets.

It was claimed in a statement sent to Qatar's Al-Jazeera television channel by Islamic Jihad, a hardline Palestinian group that has sworn to ignore Arafat's peace moves and fight on against Israel.

The United States condemned the car bombing and demanded Israel and the Palestinians redouble efforts to ensure the fragile ceasefire holds.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the car bomb attack this morning in Jerusalem," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington.

"We're deeply troubled by the continued violence," he said of the car bomb and violence during the weekend which saw almost a dozen Palestinians killed.

Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded four children on Monday, Palestinian sources and witnesses told AFP.

A boy aged around 13 was seriously injured when troops shot him in the back at a roadblock near Ramallah in the West Bank, witnesses said, adding that the fire was without provocation.

Another three Palestinian children were wounded, one seriously, when soldiers opened fire near the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, other witnesses and medical sources said.

A spokesman for the army said some 200 young Palestinians had thrown stones at a military position near the Jewish settlement of Gush Katif, and that the soldiers had only fired warning shots in the air.

A senior spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon charged that the bomb and the spate of shootings since Arafat met Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres last week showed a lack of will by the Palestinian leadership to shut down the violence.

"It is obvious that the Palestinian Authority is not doing enough, or anything to stop the violence. We don't see a ceasefire, only the continuation of terror," Avi Pazner told AFP.

"What we can see on the ground is that the ceasefire is not taking place. The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

He said the Israeli government decision on how to respond could be delayed until late Tuesday, to allow for the Jewish festival of sukkot which started late Monday.

Since Israel matched Arafat's truce offer, several joint security meetings have taken place against a background of raging violence in the Palestinian territories marking the first anniversary of the Palestinian uprising.

Almost a dozen Palestinians were killed in a weekend of angry rallies that also left more than 200, mostly young people, suffering bullet wounds.

Arafat's peace initiative has been scorned by Islamic Jihad and its larger rival Hamas, which want not just to end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip but to put an end to the Israeli state itself.

In a bid to build upon the fragile peace initiative urged by Washington as it builds a worldwide anti-terror coalition, Peres met with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat on Sunday to discuss implementing internationally-backed plans to end the violence.

Erakat described the meeting as "difficult," saying it had not even touched on the issue of a second Peres-Arafat meeting which was the main purpose of the session.

He complained to Peres that 19 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army since the truce-consolidating deal reached on September 26 between Peres and Arafat.

Israel in turn accused Arafat of not abiding by the agreement, pointing to more than 50 shooting attacks that left a dozen Israelis injured since the ceasefire last Wednesday.

The Israeli security cabinet met Saturday night and decided to give Arafat 48 hours to make good on promises to start arresting wanted hardliners and curbing the violence.

The foreign ministry said that deadline was due to expire at midday Tuesday.



-- Anonymous, October 02, 2001


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