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Barak Says Arafat Committed to Halting Disturbances
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday that Palestinian National Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has unequivocally committed himself to halting the disturbances on the Palestinian side.
While meeting senior Israeli security establishment officials at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv to assess the current situation, Barak reported on the results of his meetings Wednesday in Paris.
Seven days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, triggered by an Israeli opposition leader's provocative visit to a disputed site in Jerusalem sacred to both Jews and Muslims, have resulted in the killing of some 70 Palestinians.
The two sides have been finger-pointing each other for the latest cycle of violence. Israel used heavy weapons, including tanks, helicopter gunships and rockets, against stone-throwing demonstrators and Palestinian police.
The Paris summit failed after Arafat refused to sign a ceasefire agreement which does not include an international enquiry into the cause of the conflict. But the two sides did agree to some sort of separation on the ground.
Since Wednesday night, senior Israeli and Palestinian officers have been working to implement the understandings and Israeli forces began to pull back to the positions prior to the clashes, together with their heavy weaponry.
The Israeli army said it alters its deployment "in a manner that does not impair its level of alert or its readiness to respond quickly if shooting at its soldiers resumes.
Barak accused the Palestinians of "hundreds of violations of all the agreements which have been signed with the Palestinians, starting with the existence of armed militias and ending in the use of live fire."
But he hoped the Palestinian National Authority will "live up to its commitments and enforce its authority on the ground."
Israel Police Inspector-General Yehuda Wilk briefed Barak on the police's preparations for the Friday prayers in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem, where the clashes started a week ago.
Barak flew back home from Paris on Thursday morning instead of going to Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh for further talks with Arafat in the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Israeli and Palestinian commanders cease-fire agreement enabled the situation in the West Bank and Gaza to be relatively quiet in the morning, but exchange of fire resumed Thursday afternoon at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip.
The international community has condemned Israel's excessive use of force during the seven-day clashes in which about 70 people, almost exclusively Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, were killed and nearly 2,000 other injured.
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