Powell arrives in Israel on peace mission

11.00am

JERUSALEM - United States Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Israel this morning (NZ time) on a peace mission overshadowed by Israeli defiance over its West Bank offensive and a Palestinian suicide bombing on the eve of his visit.

Powell, adding higher profile to Washington's reactivated Middle East peacemaking role, flew to Tel Aviv after talks in Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Spain which focused on 18 months of bloodshed since Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation.

The United States has led international calls for Israel to withdraw its troops from Palestinian cities, towns, villages and refugee camps it has occupied in an offensive intended to root out militants behind a wave of suicide attacks.

But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's resolve to keep up the 13-day-old military campaign in defiance of its chief ally has been hardened by the latest suicide attack, a bus bombing on Wednesday that killed eight Israelis near the city of Haifa.

The Israeli army launched new raids in the West Bank before dawn on Thursday though it also said it had pulled back from 24 Palestinian villages.

Palestinian officials called the partial withdrawal a publicity stunt, and tanks and troops maintained a tight grip on most of the West Bank's most important cities hours before Powell was due to arrive to try to quell the violence.

Israel's latest moves sent a mixed message to US President George W Bush, who has grown increasingly vociferous in his demands for an end to the offensive.

But comments by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer indicated Washington remains firmly behind Israel, despite its criticism of the fierce West Bank offensive.

"The president believes that Ariel Sharon is committed to peace -- to finding peace in the region," Fleischer told reporters in Washington.

Taking note of the pull-outs from some Palestinian villages, Fleischer said: "The withdrawal called for is continuing."

The White House, which has repeatedly demanded that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat do more to end the violence, also urged Palestinians and Arab nations to "step up their responsibilities to denounce terrorism".

Israelis pay close attention to Washington's views because it provides the Jewish state with US$3 billion ($7 billion) in annual aid.

The latest Israeli-Palestinian blood-letting has raised fears that the bloodshed could spread across the region and beyond.

A truck filled with cooking gas exploded near a Jewish shrine on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba, killing six people, including four German tourists, witnesses said.

The Tunisian government struggled to dispel suspicions the explosion at the ancient El Ghriba synagogue was a suicide bombing prompted by Arab anger at Israeli's West Bank offensive.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said however the blast appeared to be a "deliberate terrorist attack" and not an accident, as Tunisian authorities maintained.

Wednesday's bus bombing and Palestinian charges that 500 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive have undermined hopes Powell will be able to quell more than 18 months of unrelenting violence.

He was due to meet Sharon on Friday, followed by talks on Saturday with Arafat, who remains penned in by Israeli tanks at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.

The army said tanks and troops swept into the Palestinian-ruled towns of Bir Zeit and Dahariya and the Ein Beit Elma refugee camp, near the city of Nablus, on Thursday, making dozens of arrests, seizing arms and occupying buildings.

Witnesses said soldiers ordered students out of their dormitories at Bir Zeit University, the West Bank's largest university and a stronghold of nationalism, and detained several students. Troops imposed a curfew and seized the town hall.

The army said it had pulled out of two dozen Palestinian villages in the past 24 hours, but it gave no indication when it would withdraw from Palestinian cities and other areas it has occupied since the offensive began.

"It is talk for television," said Mohammed Dahlan, head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the Gaza Strip. "It has no value on the ground."

Troops still hold the major population centres of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Bethlehem, where a standoff between soldiers and armed Palestinians continued at the Church of the Nativity.

The Palestinian Authority called on the international community "to stop these Nazi massacres of our people", and thousands marched in the Gaza Strip to protest against the heavy death toll in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Israel launched the offensive on March 29 after a suicide bomber killed 28 people at an Israeli seaside hotel.

The army has seized cities, villages and refugee camps in a campaign it says is aimed at destroying "terror infrastructure" in the West Bank. It has reported killing at least 200 Palestinians, insisting most of them were militants.

The army said the last major pocket of Palestinian resistance in the Jenin camp -- scene of some of the worst fighting in the campaign -- fell to Israeli troops when 36 gunmen surrendered on Thursday.

Powell took an upbeat view of his Middle East mission after a telephone conversation with Sharon. "The mission is still on," he told reporters in Madrid earlier on Thursday.

Despite that, many Arab states and US critics have questioned Bush's commitment to halting the offensive because Powell did not begin his mission in Jerusalem but made three stopovers on the way. Some have interpreted the delay as a way of giving Sharon time to finish his crackdown.

At least 1263 Palestinians and 446 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began in September 2000.

- REUTERS

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