Ceasefire to be announced at midday - Peres

publiziert: Donnerstag, 2. Nov 2000 / 07:35 Uhr

Jerusalem - A ceasefire in the escalating Israel-Palestinian conflict will be announced at midday Thursday, said Israeli Cabinet minister Shimon Peres after meeting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

An Israeli government announcement said that as a result of the understandings reached at the meeting, Israel has frozen retaliatory measures it planned for the killing of three Israeli soldiers in clashes with armed Palestinians Wednesday. Interviewed on Israel radio, Peres said be believed the understandings can stop the violence, and "we will have at least a day or two without funerals." Since the conflict erupted Sept. 28, at least 160 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.

Israel radio reported that the two sides would take agreed steps in the morning, and at midday, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak would address their peoples by radio and announce an end to all violence. There has been no official word from the Palestinians. A Palestinian official who attended the Peres-Arafat meeting did not talk of understandings or agreements. Insisting on anonymity, he said Arafat demanded that Israel accept an international inquiry into the conflict. The three soldiers were the first to die in combat since Oct. 1. Six Palestinians were also killed, as armed clashes intensified in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The conflict appeared to be spiraling out of control. Denouncing what he called "grave escalation initiated by the Palestinian Authority," Barak convened a special session of his Cabinet and "decided on a number of appropriate steps," a statement said. But the Peres-Arafat meeting led to the decision to hold the fire, at least for now. Barak's office said the meeting resulted in "agreement on a series of steps ... designed to renew security cooperation and an end to violence and incitement." Each side blames the other for the violence. Israel says its forces have responded with restraint to Palestinian attacks. The Palestinians charge that Israel has used excessive force in putting down demonstrations. Peres, who shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, traveled to Gaza for the meeting in Arafat's office. It was the first high level face-to-face contact between the two sides since Palestinian rioting erupted Sept. 28.

Peres said he discussed implementation of the cease-fire understandings reached at an Oct. 16-17 summit at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with U.S. President Bill Clinton. Peres told Israel radio that both sides understood that the conflict was nearing the point where "all of us would lose control." The Israeli decision appeared to douse the fuse of the conflict. After a month of riots punctuated by exchanges of gunfire, the emphasis suddenly reversed Wednesday, when intense firefights erupted in many parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a three-hour pitched battle next to the village of Al Khader, near Bethlehem, two Israeli soldiers and three Palestinians were killed. Four Israeli soldiers were wounded. Heavy Palestinian gunfire prevented Israeli forces from reaching the soldiers who were hit, so the Israelis sent attack helicopters to rake the village with machine guns while tanks provided covering fire for an armored vehicle to retrieve the soldiers. Israeli attack helicopters and tanks fired at Palestinian intelligence headquarters in Jericho, retaliation for Palestinian gunfire at an Israeli army outpost where a reserve army officer was killed, the military said. Three Palestinians were killed in a battle at the Karni crossing point in Gaza. In 35 days of clashes, at least 160 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians. On Monday, Israeli helicopters rocketed Palestinian militia headquarters in four cities in the West Bank and Gaza, retaliation for the killing of two Israeli civilians. On Oct. 12, Israeli helicopters struck Palestinian police and security headquarters after two Israeli reserve soldiers were brutally killed when they entered Ramallah by mistake. The only other soldier killed in combat in this conflict was a paramilitary border policeman who was wounded in a clash Oct. 1 at a Jewish holy site in the West Bank city of Nablus. He bled to death before he could be removed for treatment. Before the Israeli decision to hold up its military action, there were indications about targets for retaliation. Israel radio's Arabic-language broadcasts warned Palestinians in two neighborhoods in Hebron and in Beitunia, a village near Ramallah, to leave their homes. Local TV stations in Bethlehem and Hebron reported they had received Israeli warnings to workers to leave the stations. Some went off the air. After meeting U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said the conflict is not a civilian uprising but a "mini-war," but added Israel wants to "open channels" with the Palestinians.

(AP)

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