Did anyone expect anything else?
JERUSALEM - 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 âon the ground.â The deaths, punctuated by a call from Egyptâs foreign minister for an end to the armed Palestinian struggle, gave the international peace roadmap its first real test and were followed by Palestinian mortar fire and fighting in the Gaza Strip.
| Back to business as usual... |
Arafatâs criticism came as hardliners on both sides indicated they could fiercely oppose the pledges made at Wednesdayâs Aqaba summit by the right-wing Sharon and his moderate Palestinian counterpart and Arafat rival, Mahmud Abbas.
| Like I say, they have peace, the bad guys have to get jobs, or go back to holding up liquor stores... |
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 Thursday night. They were killed in a firefight with troops who ambushed them in a house near the town of Tulkarm, 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 âits assassination policy after the two summits,â referring to Aqaba and another US-led peace meeting in Egypt.
| Just think of it as assisting them in their suicide attempts... |
Earlier, Israeli police said they discovered the bodies of a young Israel man and a teenage girl whom they suspect were murdered by Palestinian militants in a farming village just west of Jerusalem.
| They were stabbed to death, according to Jerusalem Post... |
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. 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: âUntil 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?â
| I dunno, Yasser. What's it all mean? |
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