The Palestinian security chief called for an end to suicide bombings against Israel, denouncing them as "murders for no reason," in an interview published yesterday in an Israeli newspaper.
Israel's chief of police, however, warned that despite relative calm for the past three weeks, Palestinian militants are still trying to carry out attacks against Israelis. Also, the militant Hamas group pledged revenge for Israel's killing of four civilians in Gaza on Thursday.
In violence yesterday, Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen exchanged fire in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin. Three Israeli soldiers were wounded, two seriously, the military said. Five Palestinian civilians were lightly hurt, Palestinian officials said.
Interviewed in the Yediot Ahronot daily, the Palestinian security chief, Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, said he told leaders of Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to "stop the suicide bombings, stop the murders for no reason."
An aide to Yehiyeh confirmed that he had talked to the Israeli newspaper.
Yehiyeh, a retired general, was appointed interior minister in June in a Cabinet reshuffle, taking charge of Palestinian security forces. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had held the post until then.
In the interview, Yehiyeh said that "suicide attacks are contrary to the Palestinian tradition, against international law and harm the Palestinian people."
"Children were exploited for these attacks," Yehiyeh said. Several of the bombers were teenagers.
Arafat has on occasion spoken out against suicide bombings, though Israel says he has encouraged violence against Israeli civilians.
Palestinian intellectuals recently published a statement calling for a halt to bombings, saying they harm the Palestinian cause. However, polls indicate that a majority of Palestinians continue to support attacks on Israelis, as a way of settling scores for Israeli military strikes against them.
Yehiyeh has been meeting with leaders of Palestinian groups to persuade them to accept a plan he worked out with Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, aimed at easing crippling Israeli restrictions in the West Bank.
Under the plan, Israel was to turn security control over the West Bank town of Bethlehem and the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinians, as a test case. If the Palestinians prevented terror attacks, Israel pledged to loosen its grip on the rest of the West Bank. The Bethlehem handover took place Aug. 20, but there has been no movement in Gaza, and the two sides blame each other for the delay.
Hamas and other extremist groups rejected the plan and pledged to continue their attacks against Israel.
After an Israeli tank fired shells at a Bedouin encampment near a Jewish settlement in Gaza early Thursday, killing a mother, two of her sons and another relative, militants threatened revenge.
Meanwhile, Israeli Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki warned that the three-week lull in Palestinian attacks does not mean the Palestinians have changed their tactics.
In an interview published yesterday, he told the Maariv daily that the lull was a result of successful Israeli anti-terror operations.
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