PALESTINIANS SHOT DEAD AS SHARON SEEKS UNITY GOVT
By Deborah Camiel

JERUSALEM (Reuters - 12 February) - Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank Monday as Israel's rightwing Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon sought to forge a unity government.

Sharon's right-wing Likud party was due to hold new talks with the center-left Labor party to try to forge a broad coalition to try to contain the violence.

But the latest killings underlined the challenges facing Sharon, who won a crushing victory over outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak (news - web sites) in elections last Tuesday.

Soldiers killed Ziad Abu Sway when they opened fire on a bus carrying Palestinian laborers near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Palestinian witnesses and hospital sources said.

Atef Ahmed al-Nabulsi was shot dead near the West Bank city of Ramallah and was taken by Israeli soldiers to a military base. Israeli security sources confirmed Nabulsi had died.

The deaths followed the killing by Palestinian gunmen of Jewish settler Tsahi Sasson, 35, as he drove along a road outside Jerusalem Sunday.

The death toll in more than four months of confrontation has risen to at least 321 Palestinians, 53 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs.

The violence erupted in late September when peace talks reached deadlock and Sharon visited a site in Jerusalem sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

Violence Overshadows Talks

Sharon, 72, has demanded that Palestinians end their protests against Israeli occupation before peace talks resume, but some Palestinians have vowed to step up their struggle.

``The Middle East region is on the verge of more violence and confrontation and Sharon's criminal history represents only one episode of the bloodshed and massacres,'' Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Islamic organization Hamas, told Saudi Arabia's Arabic-language newspaper al-Watan.

Likud party lawmaker Moshe Arens told Israel Radio there would be no negotiations as long as there was violence.

``Sharon says it clearly -- there will be no peace talks as long as there is violence,'' he said.

But Jibril Rajoub, a senior Palestinian security official, said it was up to Sharon to make reconciliatory moves such as lifting a blockade of Palestinian areas.

``The Palestinian Authority has the capability and the desire to keep control and it is not true that we have lost control in the field,'' Rajoub told Israel Radio.

``I think the ball is in the court of the government of Israel, which must encourage the Palestinian Authority.''

Palestinian officials said they expected Israel to allow flights to resume from Gaza International Airport for nine hours to allow Palestinian pilgrims to travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Israel has overriding security responsibility for Gaza's only international airport. It has closed it as part of the blockade, intended to stop guerrilla attacks in Israel. But Palestinians view the shutdown as collective punishment for the unrest.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) has said he is keeping a close eye on Sharon's coalition talks and will give the Israeli leader a chance to prove he was serious about peace.

Arabs regard Sharon as a war criminal because he orchestrated Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Hundreds of Palestinian refugees were massacred in Beirut by rightwing Lebanese gunmen backed by Israeli forces.

In Cairo, Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak discussed the future of the Middle East peace process following Sharon's election.

Presidential sources said Arafat was expected to meet visiting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar later on Monday. Spain hosted the 1991 Madrid peace conference which launched talks between Israel and four of its Arab neighbors.

Coalition Talks To Resume

Sharon aide Eyal Arad said teams from Sharon's Likud and Barak's Labor Party would resume their efforts to forge an alliance which some party members believe is the best chance to pursue Middle East peacemaking.

Failing the formation of a government with Labor, Sharon would have to join forces with extreme nationalist and religious parties likely to obstruct peace efforts.

He must form a government by a late March deadline or face a new election for prime minister and parliament.

Arad said Sharon had emerged from coalition talks Sunday optimistic about the chances of creating a left-right government and was weighing goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians.

``Sharon is currently looking into various confidence- building measures between Israel and the Palestinians in order to improve the atmosphere and proceed toward peace,'' Arad said.

Labor's Shimon Peres, a former prime minister, told Israeli radio Sharon's offer of two top ministerial portfolios was very serious and chances for a unity government were ``50-50.''

Israeli media said Barak might yet agree to stay on as defense minister, a post Sharon has offered him, but Barak's office said he stood by his earlier rejections of the post.

DOZENS OF PALESTINIANS WOUNDED IN FIERCE GUN BATTLE

[GAZA (Reuters - Monday, 12 February)] - Over 40 Palestinians were wounded by bullets and shrapnel during a fierce gun-battle with Israeli troops in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday, Palestinian hospital officials said.

Around 50 Palestinian gunmen holed up inside the Khan Younis refugee camp fought a protracted battle with Israeli soldiers guarding the nearby Gush Katif settlement bloc.

The main battle lasted over six hours, but random exchanges of fire continued late into the night.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the camp were forced to flee their homes during the fighting and two houses caught fire. Palestinian witnesses said several rifle-propelled grenades hit a mosque on the outskirts of the refugee camp.

The area has become a frequent flashpoint for violence since a Palestinian uprising erupted in late September after peace talks became deadlocked. At least 387 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed in the unrest.

Palestinian hospital officials reported that 26 people were wounded by gunfire, and 17 others were hit by shrapnel, adding that two of the wounded were in critical condition.

Hospital officials said 69 other people were overcome by what they described as a type of teargas that causes hysteria, and a dozen of them were admitted to hospital.

``This was a type of gas that we had never seen before,'' a doctor at Khan Younis's Nasser hospital told Reuters.

Television pictures taken at the hospital's emergency ward showed several people lying on stretchers suffering from what appeared to be severe breathing difficulties, and at least one was in convulsions.

The Israeli army dismissed the charge, saying it ``did not use any type of gas whatsoever'' during the gun battle. It said soldiers set off smoke bombs to cover their positions during the fighting. They also denied firing tank or mortar shells.

A local Israeli commander said Palestinian gunmen had fired an anti-tank rocket at an Israeli army post at the start of the fighting, but it fell short and no one was hurt.

The head of a group of Palestinian gunmen who fought in the battle told Reuters the Palestinian side used light and automatic weapons, but denied firing an anti-tank rocket.

He said his men were trying to stop Israeli bulldozers from destroying farm-land belonging to Al-Mawasi village, a community of about 8,000 people situated several kilometers away on the other side of Gush Katif.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/2/68.htm