Peace deal looks shaky on streets

The peace deal reached at the emergency Middle East summit yesterday had no sooner been announced than doubts were cast on whether it would end nearly three weeks of bloody clashes that have cost 105 lives.

The plan, brokered by United States President Bill Clinton, was given a guarded welcome by the West but dismissed as a travesty by most Arab states and Iran, whose Defence Minister urged Islamic countries to use oil as a weapon to bolster the Palestinian struggle for a viable state.

Iraq called for a jihad (holy war) as the only way to "liberate Palestine," while Lebanon said the deal was a failure because it did not address the territorial and humanitarian causes of Palestinian anger.

European powers expressed relief at the outcome of the emergency summit but an undertone of wariness reflected the difficult challenge ahead in selling the deal to ordinary Palestinians.

At least 105 people have been killed in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and parts of northern Israel in clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. Almost all of them were Palestinians or Israeli Arabs and one in five of them was 18 years old or less.

The pact did not meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's key demand, a full international inquiry into causes of the unrest. It foresees a return to the status quo before the violence, a diplomatic deadlock that many Palestinians resented.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was faced with having to persuade Israelis feeling besieged by Palestinian mobs to accept a return to peace talks.

Shortly after Mr Clinton announced the agreement at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Rami Meir hit the ground outside his Jerusalem area home as bullets fired from a Palestinian village across the valley whizzed over his head. "I might turn them into a necklace," said Mr Meir, displaying three dented bullets that had narrowly missed his head.

An Israeli border policeman was not as lucky. He was fighting for his life at a Jerusalem hospital after being hit in the chest by one of the rounds.

Police cordoned off the road and evacuated residents from several apartment buildings in the Gilo neighbourhood, which is built on West Bank land on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

"If they sign there and shoot here, what kind of agreement is that?" asked Mr Meir's neighbour, Ilana Erez.

The mother of five said she had been too afraid to leave her flat since Palestinian gunmen fired bullets into the street almost two weeks ago.

"I have no more trust in the Palestinians. We have come to the point where even if we have peace, it won't be a real peace."

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians watched television broadcasts of the emergency summit in Egypt, bitterly disappointed that Mr Arafat had failed to wrest more concessions out of Israel.

"The blood of our martyrs is still not dry, and everything is still terrible. The Palestinian Authority should cut off negotiations," said a man in a Gaza Strip shop.

The Palestinian television news led its lineup with the summit but most of its programming was dedicated to footage of wounded Palestinians lying in hospital beds.

In Jerusalem, the city's produce market and shopping malls remained deserted, proof of Israeli fears that Palestinian militants might launch suicide bomb attacks as in the past.

- REUTERS

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