 |
Roundup: Missile Attacks Halt Israeli-Palestinian Security Cooperation
Shortly after Israel launched missile attacks on Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the Palestinians announced that they would not attend a meeting with Israeli security officials, scheduled in the evening.
Palestinian security officials said that they could not attend such a meeting and resume cooperation with the Jewish state when the Palestinians were hit and killed by Israeli missiles.
Despite the announcement on Monday by the US State Department that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were "willing to continue high-level security contacts," the situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank worsened on Tuesday.
Blaming the Palestinians for firing at least two mortar shells at the Katif settlement in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday morning, Israeli army fired at least four missiles at the Palestinian naval base in northern Gaza and the Palestinian intelligence headquarters in the Dir al Balah refugee camp.
Palestinian hospital sources reported that a naval police lieutenant, identified as Wael Khweitar, who was also a doctor, was killed in the attack when one of the missiles hit the clinic where he was working, while dozens of others were injured in the daylight attack.
Abdel Razek Al-Majaydeh, Palestinian public security chief in Gaza, described the Israeli missile strikes as in a "state of war."
Instead of taking measures to curb the violence, Sharon visited earlier Tuesday an army base near the Gaza border, and said that he had a plan for "fighting terror and restoring security."
"We know exactly what we are doing," said Sharon, who has been criticized for adopting a military policy, similar to that of his predecessor, Ehud Barak.
"I have a very clear plan. This plan will be executed and security will be restored. But people have to have a little patience and must understand that we are talking about an ongoing, complicated and very difficult battle," Sharon said.
The latest tit-for-tat conflict in the Gaza Strip has overshadowed efforts to renew security cooperation between the two sides, which culminated last week in a top-level security meeting.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Monday that following separate telephone conversations with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sharon and Arafat had agreed "in principle to continue the discussions and we will continue to work with the parties to try to see if we can help them do that."
A security meeting scheduled for Monday night was cancelled after Israeli officials said that their Palestinian counterparts had refused to show up.
The Palestinians were demanding Israel apologize for the incident occurred at the Erez Checkpoint between the Gaza Strip and Israel on April 5, in which Israeli soldiers opened fire at a convoy carrying Palestinian security chiefs after they attended a security meeting in Israel.
Israel insisted that it was the Palestinians who initiated the shoot-out. A report issued by the Israeli army said that the Israeli soldiers had fully observed orders, only firing after they were shot at from the lead jeep in the Palestinian convoy.
Despite the Israeli version of the incident, Sharon sent a letter on Sunday to Powell, expressing "regret" for the incident.
But the U.S. appeared to disagree with the explanation, with Boucher on Monday describing the incident as "very serious."
"Obviously, we asked the Israeli government to look into it, and we would expect him (Sharon) to communicate not only to us but to others whatever conclusions they have," he said.
Mohammed Dahlan, head of the Palestinian Preventive Force in Gaza who was in the convoy returning from the meeting and was nearly killed in the shootings, said on Monday that as a result of the incident, he would not attend any more talks with Israeli officials.
Arafat on Monday called Dahlan and asked him to go to the next round of security talks. But Dahlan responded: "You know I have never said 'no' to you, and that I have never turned you down, but this time I must refuse."
Worried by the stalemate of the security cooperation between the two sides, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres phoned Dahlan Monday evening to ask him to change his mind and attend the security meeting.
"You have gone crazy," Dahlan said, adding that "this was not the mistake of an individual soldier. Everyone was lying to you."
"There were 72 bullets fired at me. They did not shoot a missile because then they would have to take responsibility. They could not blow up my car, so they made it look like a mistake," he said.
Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, hotly contested Dahlan's accusations, asserting that it was Dahlan who owed Israel an apology, and not the other way round.
"Dahlan is the person who is supposed to be responsible for security cooperation, and he is the one who stopped the security cooperation," Gissin said.
Security cooperation between the two sides is vital for ending the conflict, but more shootings and missile attacks could only tear the two sides apart.
In This Section
|