Deadly violence again shook Israel and the Palestinian territories late Thursday, only a day after hopes for peace got a boost at a summit in Jordan.
The killing of two Israelis and two Palestinians came as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat cast doubts on the US-led summit from which he was excluded, saying Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had offered Palestinians nothing "on the ground."
PHOTO: AP
The deaths, punctuated by a call from Egypt's foreign minister for an end to the armed Palestinian struggle, gave the international peace road map its first real test and were followed by Palestinian mortar fire and fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Arafat's criticism came as hardliners on both sides indicated they could fiercely oppose the pledges made at Wednesday's Aqaba summit by the right-wing Sharon and his moderate Palestinian counterpart and Arafat rival, Mahmud Abbas.
On the ground, two militants of the radical Islamic group Hamas preparing a suicide attack were shot dead by Israeli troops in the northern West Bank on Thursday night, military sources said.
They were killed in a firefight with troops who ambushed them in a house near the town of Tulkarem, and a third Palestinian was wounded.
However, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad group said the slain militants were members of his group.
A senior Arafat aide, Nabil Abu Rudeina, reacted to the killings by saying Israel had already returned to "its assassination policy after the two summits," referring to Aqaba and another US-led peace meeting in Egypt.
Earlier, Israeli police said they discovered the bodies of an Israel man and a teenage girl whom they suspect were murdered by Palestinian militants in a farming village just west of Jerusalem.
Early Friday, three mortar rounds were fired at a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and a fourth at an Israeli army position, but caused no casualties, an army spokesman said.
And soldiers came under heavy attack after moving in to destroy two tunnels under the Egyptian border in the Gaza town of Rafah. None of them was hurt, but a Palestinian was thought to have been wounded.
Commenting on the Aqaba meeting, Arafat said: "Until now, Sharon has done nothing on the ground. What does it mean if Sharon removes one caravan and after that tells us he has removed a settlement?"
Despite the comment by Arafat, who has been largely sidelined by Washington and Israel, Sharon was reportedly set to hold in the coming days his third meeting with Abbas in recent weeks.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and his aides were also to discuss the dismantling of rogue settlement outposts that Sharon promised at the Aqaba summit..
Sharon is facing anger from Jewish settlers over his pledge to dismantle some of their illegal outposts in order to kick-start the road map, while Abbas has roused the ire of radical militant groups over his vow to end the armed uprising.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS