Black clouds over peace in the Middle East

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops and Palestinians fought on New Year's Day, casting gloom over United States President Bill Clinton's final bid to end more than a century of bloodshed by brokering a historic peace treaty.

Gun battles raged in the West Bank and Gaza Strip early yesterday, especially in the divided West Bank town of Hebron and near the Jewish settlements of Psagot and Ariel.

Palestinian witnesses said soldiers fired several explosive devices, possibly tank shells or anti-tank rockets, wounding at least one person.

The Israeli Army said its troops came under Palestinian fire in a dozen locations in the West Bank and Gaza.

Last night, two Palestinian policemen were reportedly killed by Army fire during gun battles in the West Bank town of Tulkarem. The Army said it was investigating the incident.

Fighting was expected to continue amid calls on the 36th anniversary of President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction to intensify attacks on Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers to mark the occasion.

An 11-year-old Palestinian boy died of wounds received in a gun battle in the heavily populated heart of Hebron , raising the toll to 294 Palestinians killed in the worst Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed in years.

Thirteen Israeli Arabs and 43 other Israelis have also been killed in a 13-week-old Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza that erupted in the wake of deadlocked peace negotiations.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana planned a mission to try to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat to accept Clinton's peace proposals.

Joined by EU Middle East envoy Miguel Moratinos, Solana was scheduled to hold separate talks with Barak in Jerusalem and Arafat at his Gaza headquarters.

Sunday's slaying of Binyamin Kahane, the son of the late anti-Arab rabbi Meir Kahane, and a senior Fatah official raised fears of revenge attacks that would destroy Clinton's peace bid.

Binyamin Kahane and his wife Talia were killed and five of their children - aged two months to 10 years - were wounded when Palestinian gunmen ambushed their van as the family drove from Jerusalem to their home in a Jewish settlement.

Meir Kahane, shot dead by an Egyptian-born US citizen a decade ago in New York, founded the Kach movement that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The younger Kahane led the Kahane Hai (Kahane Lives) group.

Shouting "Revenge, Revenge," mourners at Binyamin Kahane's funeral rampaged through the streets of Jerusalem, bursting into a grocery store where they beat Arab workers and sprayed cans of teargas in their eyes.

"Death to Arabs," and "Barak is a traitor," chanted the mourners, who later attacked an Arab taxi driver and several Jewish motorists they mistook for Arabs, as they marched to the cemetery to bury Kahane next to his father.

Police arrested at least five members of the outlawed Kach and Kahane Hai factions, classified as terrorist groups.

A Palestinian group, the Martyrs of the al-Aqsa Intifada, claimed responsibility for the attack on Kahane and his wife. It was unclear whether Kahane had been targeted personally.

Palestinians vowed to avenge the killing of Thabet Thabet, a senior West Bank official in the Fatah faction who Palestinians said was assassinated by Israeli soldiers outside his Tulkarm home.

"Barak has opened the gates of Hell on himself," Marwan Barghouthi, one of Fatah's most prominent leaders, said about the killing. Palestinian officials say Israel has killed more than 20 activists from Fatah and other organisations it has targeted since the uprising began.

In a visit to Army headquarters in the West Bank, Barak called for Jewish settlers and Israelis "to show restraint and self-control, even in these difficult hours."

The clock began ticking in earnest yesterday - Israel and the Palestinians have 20 days until Clinton leaves office to agree to his proposals on highly charged issues such as the fate of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements.

But Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the time constraints did not concern Palestinians, who wanted to clarify some points before giving a final response. "We don't want the time factor to be used as a sword over our necks."

Arafat held talks with Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis on the US plan. He then flew to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Amr Moussa before an Arab committee meeting on the plan this week.

Barak told his cabinet a Palestinian rejection of Clinton's blueprint would force Israel to take a break from peacemaking to prepare for a unilateral separation from Gaza and the West Bank pending a Palestinian return to the peace table.

Such a separation would cut Palestinians' economic lifeline with Israel, where tens of thousands of workers from the West Bank and Gaza found daily employment before the uprising. Opinion polls show Barak's popularity at an all-time low and forecast that he will be beaten by Ariel Sharon in the February 6 ballot.

Israel has agreed to sign a treaty establishing the first permanent global criminal court after receiving assurances from the US it would not harm Israeli interests, especially its settlements on occupied land, which under the treaty could be considered a war crime.

- REUTERS

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