Israelis capture militants

TULKARM - The Israeli Army has captured a senior Palestinian militant it accused of masterminding an attack on a kibbutz that killed five Israelis, including a mother and her two children.

Fresh surges in Israeli-Palestinian violence have added to problems besetting a new US peace mission already overshadowed by a stormy Israeli election campaign and a possible US-led war against Iraq. Two Palestinians were killed yesterday.

Israeli troops surrounded and shelled a neighbourhood in the West Bank village of Shweike where Palestinian witnesses said Mohammed Naifeh, wanted by Israel for plotting the kibbutz attack, slipped from hideout to hideout before he was cornered in a house.

The army said human rights activists helped to negotiate the surrender of Naifeh, a leading member of an armed group linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. A second wanted man was also arrested.

Israel, battling to halt a two-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood, says Naifeh dispatched the gunman who escaped after killing five people at Kibbutz Metzer in northern Israel last Sunday. The gunman, like Naifeh, belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Al-Aqsa's leadership said it would halt attacks inside Israel if Israeli troops withdrew from Palestinian towns. Israel was quick to reject the offer, which did not include the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

An Israeli Government official said its military presence in the towns was necessary to stop Palestinian gun and suicide bomb attacks, and troops would leave only after all militant groups pledged to stop violence.

Fatah and the Islamic militant group Hamas are in Cairo discussing a possible halt to suicide bombings against Israelis. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman met Arafat at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah to discuss the Cairo meetings.

Following the kibbutz attack, Israel sent troops backed by tanks into the West Bank city of Nablus in an operation it said was aimed at thwarting Palestinian attacks on its citizens.

Troops shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian in the city, where 11 Palestinians have been arrested in the present incursion. Witnesses said soldiers opened fire on stone-throwers, killing the youth. The army said it shot an attacker who threw a petrol bomb.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, facing a leadership challenge from hawkish Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the Jewish state's security high on the agenda, told soldiers in Nablus he would not put a time limit on their presence there.

"We are placing no restrictions on our operations," Sharon said. "Israel is under no pressure. No one is criticising us or has the right to do so. We are talking here about Israel's right to protect its citizens."

Arafat told reporters in Ramallah that "fanatic groups" were now in power in Israel. "[The Israelis] are escalating every day, every hour," he said.

In Gaza, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 37-year-old Palestinian on the Egyptian border, Palestinian security officials and medics said. The army said soldiers had fired at Palestinians throwing hand grenades in the area but had no report of casualties. In a pre-dawn raid on Palestinian-ruled Gaza City yesterday, Israel arrested three wanted men.

Later on in the day, soldiers surrounded a wedding hall in Ramallah where relatives of Palestinians killed by Israel were having a Ramadan meal, Palestinian witnesses said. Women were ordered out of the hall as soldiers checked the identities of the men and detained several.

The army said that 17 Hamas militants were arrested in the Ramallah area and military sources said some of the arrests were carried out in the wedding hall. In the Hebron area, forces arrested what Israel said was a high-ranking militant linked to Fatah responsible for five Israeli deaths.

US officials in Washington said that while they would continue to work on a peace "road map", they were resigned to slow progress in Middle East talks at least until Israel's general election on January 28.

At least 1657 Palestinians and 631 Israelis have been killed in the Palestinian uprising that erupted in September 2000.

- REUTERS

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