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Israel targets Islamic Jihad
ISRAELI forces have rounded up dozens of suspected West Bank militants in a sign of impatience with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, just hours before a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.The operation, in which the army said 52 members of Islamic Jihad were taken into custody, was the biggest sweep against wanted militants since Messrs Abbas and Sharon declared a truce on February 8. It followed an Islamic Jihad drive-by shooting that killed a Jewish settler in the West Bank yesterday and mortar bomb and rocket attacks by the group against Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and a town in southern Israel. Islamic Jihad said the attacks were in response to recent Israeli raids in the West Bank against several of its men. Israel's planned pullout from the Gaza Strip in mid-August will be high on the agenda of the first meeting between an Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian president in Jerusalem, a holy city at the centre of the Middle East dispute. From Mr Sharon's side, the talks will focus on steps to prevent Palestinian militants from disrupting the withdrawal and filling a potential power vacuum in Gaza afterwards. Israel says Mr Abbas has not done enough. "As things stand now, (Mr Abbas's) powers have not been brought to bear in fighting terror," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Israel Radio before the summit at Mr Sharon's residence. Mr Abbas, whose election in January to succeed the late Yasser Arafat brought new hopes of peace, wants to be able to show militants he has won clear concessions from Israel in return for efforts to ensure the pullout is not carried out under fire. He coaxed Palestinian factions in March into agreeing to a "period of calm" until the end of the year, conditional on Israel ending its operations against them. But an Islamic Jihad spokesman in the West Bank urged Mr Abbas to cancel the summit after the latest Israeli arrests, while the militant Hamas group said in the Gaza Strip that "a declaration of an end to calm could be made at any moment". Washington is counting on Israel's pullout from all 21 settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank to kick-start a US-backed international peace "road map" plan, which envisages the establishment of a Palestinian state. However, Mr Sharon reaffirmed at talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Jerusalem on Sunday that he would not enter into talks on permanent peace deal with the Palestinians until Mr Abbas had disarmed and dismantled militant groups. Mr Abbas wants to co-opt gunmen into the Palestinian security forces and their organisations into mainstream politics rather than risk confrontation that may lead to civil war. The chief Palestinian negotiator said Mr Abbas would press Mr Sharon for further Israeli troop pullbacks from West Bank cities, two of which have been turned over to Palestinian security control. The Palestinian leader also wants Israel to free more of the 8000 Palestinians in its jails, including long-serving inmates. Abbas aides said he would seek Mr Sharon's agreement for a free passage corridor between Gaza and the West Bank, and demand an end to Israeli settlement expansion. No joint news conference was scheduled, an apparent sign of low expectations. Posted by: Spavirt Pheng6042 2005-06-21 |
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