Israel said yesterday that a West Bank shooting that wounded an Israeli settler and her three children would not derail a Palestinian prisoner release intended as a gesture to keep a US-backed peace plan on track.
"I don't see anything that can change the decision," Israeli Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Israel Radio about tomorrow's scheduled release of hundreds of prisoners.
The attack on Sunday on the Israeli woman's car just outside Jerusalem was claimed by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, and rocked a three-month truce declared by militants on June 29.
Additional violence in the West Bank yesterday in which a Palestinian was killed threatened the ceasefire further.
The Israeli army said it shot and killed the Palestinian as he was trying to plant a bomb on a road near the West Bank city of Tulkarm.
"This is an assassination and we hold [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's government responsible for the consequences of assassinating a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades," the group said.
Israeli officials said the attack on the Israeli woman's car near the settlement of Har Gilo underscored the need for Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to disarm militants rather than cut truce deals with them.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath called the shooting a violation of the truce but said Israel's hold on much of the West Bank made it impossible for Palestinian security forces to take effective action against militants in the area.
Reporting on tomorrow's sche-duled prisoner release, Israeli media said a list of some 440 prisoners was compiled, including about 200 from Islamic militant groups. Israeli officials had said 540 prisoners would be freed in a bid to bolster Abbas.
Palestinians seek a general release of all the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and militants have said anything short of that could jeopardize the truce.
The proximity of Sunday's attack to Bethlehem, from where Israeli forces pulled back a month ago under the "road map" peace plan, could complicate negotiations over further withdrawals from West Bank cities.
Palestinian Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan wants Israeli forces to quit Ramallah, the West Bank's commercial capital that houses Arafat's headquarters, where he has been effectively confined by Israel's military grip on the city.
But Dahlan opposes an Israeli precondition for the pullback -- the transfer to the West Bank city of Jericho of 20 militants sheltering in Arafat's compound -- saying the transfer could endanger the truce.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion