Bloodshed confronts peace envoy in Middle East

JERUSALEM - United States envoy Anthony Zinni meets Palestinian President Yasser Arafat today, hours after getting a birds-eye view of the latest Middle East bloodshed in which six Israelis and Palestinians died.

The retired Marine Corps general flew over Israel and the West Bank in a helicopter with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday, hovering over the northern Israeli city of Afula minutes after two Palestinian gunmen killed two Israelis.

Police shot dead the gunmen.

Later in the day, a Palestinian gunman from the militant Hamas group killed an Israeli woman settler in an attack on Israeli vehicles on a main road in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers at a nearby post shot and killed the assailant.

Words as well as bullets flew between the two sides, underlining the difficulties Zinni faces in trying to end 14 months of conflict that has killed more than 900 people.

"We see no change in Arafat's strategy of violence and terror, and if you bring about a tactical change on his part it will be an achievement," Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Zinni.

Sharon insists there must be a week without violence before he will accept that the Palestinians are serious about peacemaking.

The Palestinian Authority strongly condemned the two attacks against Israeli civilians, and reaffirmed its commitment to Zinni's mission.

A faction of Arafat's Fatah and the radical Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the Afula shooting, saying it was to avenge Israel's killing of militants and the deaths of five boys blown up by an Israeli bomb last week.

US and Israeli sources said Zinni and Sharon took a detour from their aerial tour to fly over Afula after news of the attack. Beneath them ambulances rushed to the scene.

The attack also wounded at least 50 people.

Zinni will meet Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The US has said the envoy will remain in the region for as long as it takes to achieve his aims.

Global pressure for US mediation and a desire to cement Arab support for its anti-terror war in Afghanistan prompted the Americans to try again to end Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Israel Radio quoted dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres as saying "psychology and diplomacy" were needed "to extinguish the flames of violence".

But Sharon has given no signs of ending an internationally condemned policy of assassinating Palestinian militants, and Israeli forces still blockade West Bank cities in what the Army terms a security measure.

Israeli and Palestinian analysts have described Sharon's demand for a week without violence as a tactic to delay implementing the peacemaking blueprint drawn up by a panel led by former US Senator George Mitchell. It calls for a cooling-off period and a freeze on the building of Jewish settlements.

- REUTERS

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