Israel, Palestinians Fail to Reach Truce AgreementTop Israeli and Palestinian security officials failed to agree on a U.S. ceasefire plan after debating for three hours at a security meeting under the auspice of US officials at Jerusalem's King David Hotel Monday night.Israel Radio reports quoted Palestinian sources as saying that the meeting, which was aiming to strengthen the current fragile ceasefire between the two sides after eight months of violence, had been "very tense" and officials from both sides shouted at each other. According to the radio, the Palestinians rejected to carry out security coordinating measures before Israel lifts a closure on Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "Such an implementation is impossible and unacceptable," the Palestinian sources said. Meanwhile, an Israeli top official told Israel Radio that the Israeli side will not lift the closure before the Palestinians take substantial measures to stop the violence. The meeting, scheduled to take place in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday, was postponed at the last minute after Tenet saw significant differences between the two sides over the plan. During Monday's meeting, both sides submitted their response to the plan presented by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, in their three-way meeting on Friday. After the meeting, Palestinian officials had gone back to Ramallah to brief Arafat on the result of the meeting, while Tenet also reported the meeting to U.S. senior officials in Washington. Participating in the meeting are Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) head Avi Dichter, senior Israel Defense Forces officers on the Israeli side, and heads of preventive security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, and intelligence chief General Amin Hindi on the Palestinian side, according to the report. According to Israeli media reports, the U.S. ceasefire plan urges both sides to resume their security coordination. It demands that the Palestinians arrest militant activists, such as members of Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad (holy war), and stop the violence, in exchange for Israel's withdrawal to the positions they held before the outbreak of the violence late last September, and refraining from launching initiative attacks against Palestinian targets. The major difference between the two sides for carrying out the ceasefire reportedly was that the Palestinians want the security coordination to be part of and not separate from a political package, while Israel insists that nothing should be discussed before the violence stops. The violence had lasted for more than eight months, during which over 570 had been killed, most of them Palestinians. |
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