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Israeli Commander Says Heartened by Meeting with Palestinians
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) southern commander said Thursday that he was encouraged by an overnight meeting with his Palestinian counterparts in a bid to try to end a month-long violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"There was a more optimistic tone that was completely different from all the other meetings we have had in the past month," Major-General Yom-Tov Samia, who is in charge of Gaza, told Army Radio.
He declined to say whether any deals were reached in the meeting to end the clashes in which over 130 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed and thousands more wounded.
Israel's central commander responsible for the West Bank, Major-General Yitzhak Eitan, also met his Palestinian counterparts late Wednesday in the first formal meeting between the two sides in about two weeks.
Samia said the two sides were entering a "point of time that is a test." He made the remarks shortly after an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in an attack by a suicide bicycle bomber in Gaza.
The Israelis said the bomber was killed and that they are going to look into the incident, though it was not out of their expectations.
Jibril Rajoub, chief of the Palestinian security force in the West Bank, denied that meetings with Israelis were intended to calm the situation.
He said the recent meetings between Palestinians and the IDF were simply to discuss routine issues, such as exchanging people wounded in clashes.
Despite sporadic clashes between the Israeli security forces and the Palestinians, the Israeli defense establishment has reported a gradual decline in the the number of violence on the Palestinian territories.
Gilad Sher, a senior aid to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, said on Wednesday if the positive trend continues, Israel might consider pulling back some of its forces that were redeployed following the outbreak of the bloody conflicts.
The meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs came after an overnight meeting between Barak's representative Yossi Ginosar with Palestinian National Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and Mohammed Dahlan, head of Palestinian Preventive Security Forces in Gaza.
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