Sharon makes it clear: Israel won't kill Arafat

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday, for the first time in public, that Israel has no intention of killing Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, despite the Israeli Government's pledge to remove him from power.

Sharon also reaffirmed Israel's determination to continue building its vast barrier in the West Bank, in defiance of US and international pressure.

Israel drew an international outcry for its decision in principle last month to "remove" Arafat and for comments by Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, that killing Arafat was an option.

"I don't see any plans to kill him, although the man is responsible for deaths of hundreds, of thousands, of mostly civilians because his strategy is a strategy of terror," Sharon told a group of European parliamentarians visiting Jerusalem.

"The security fence is not a political border ... The fence is an additional means of preventing terror ... so we will continue building it," he added.

Palestinians call the fence a land grab that cuts deep into territory they want for a state. Israel, which plans to extend the fence hundreds of kilometres, says it is a security barrier to keep out Palestinian attackers.

Sharon's statement on Arafat followed weeks of speculation on how and when Israel might carry out its threat to oust the Palestinian President.

Political sources had said Sharon had ruled out assassinating Arafat, but it was the first time the right-wing Israeli leader has done so publicly himself.

Israel accuses Arafat of fomenting violence in a three-year-old uprising for independence. Arafat denies the allegation and accuses Sharon of waging a war to annihilate the Palestinian people.

Some Israeli Cabinet members have talked openly of expelling Arafat, who has been confined by Israeli tanks to his West Bank compound in Ramallah for much of the past two years.

Adding to tensions in the region, Hizbollah, a Lebanese guerrilla group backed by Syria and Iran, fired rockets and artillery rounds at Israeli Army positions in a disputed area of the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel hit back with two airstrikes.

The militant Islamic group Hamas, meanwhile, said it was ready to talk to Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie about his proposal for halting attacks against Israelis and said that a commitment would depend on whether Israel would stop its own attacks on Palestinians.

Also yesterday, Israel said it planned to provide government services, including lighting and education services, to some Jewish settler outposts in the West Bank which it vowed to dismantle under a stalled US-backed peace "road map".

The Palestinian Authority said the decision showed Sharon lied when he pledged to remove dozens of small enclaves built on occupied land without Israeli Government authorisation.

- REUTERS