Gunbattle shakes uneasy Mideast truce

GAZA - A fierce gunbattle erupted in the Gaza Strip yesterday, soon after Israel and the Palestinians agreed to try to forge a lasting truce that could boost United States efforts to create a global anti-terror alliance.

One Palestinian was shot dead and at least 22 other people were wounded, four of them critically, in the fighting near the border with Egypt.

Hours earlier, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres agreed at talks in Gaza to renew efforts to implement a truce-to-talks plan that includes the lifting of Israeli military blockades of Palestinian areas.

Peres and Arafat also said security talks would resume today, the first anniversary of a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in which more than 750 people have been killed, and agreed to meet again next week.

But neither side expressed much hope of quickly turning a shaky week-old ceasefire into a durable truce.

Bloodshed continued even as Peres and Arafat held their long-awaited truce talks at Gaza Airport, and the two Nobel Peace laureates sat tense and unsmiling as they met.

Israeli troops shot dead a 16-year-old Palestinian only a few kilometres from the airport, and three Israeli soldiers were wounded in a bomb blast in the same area in southern Gaza before the meeting.

Shooting continued overnight in the area - near an Army post - although other parts of Gaza and the West Bank were generally calm.

Arafat and Peres met under strong US pressure because the conflict is widely seen as an obstacle to efforts to recruit Arab states for an alliance to respond to the suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington.

Although Israel and the Palestinians agreed to meet only after fierce diplomatic pressure, neither wants to upset the US and be seen as blocking the anti-terror coalition.

"We're encouraged," US President George W. Bush said as he met Muslim and Arab Americans to urge the country to show tolerance.

Aides to Arafat said Powell spoke to the Palestinian leader after the talks with Peres, and that Powell said he and Bush were "relieved and comforted" by the meeting.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan hoped the meeting would lead to "sustainable dialogue".

- REUTERS

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