-Caveat Lector- Subj: [Spy News] Top Palestinians Attacked After Joint Security Talks Date: 04/09/2001 1:55:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mario Profaca) Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([Spy News]) Top Palestinians Attacked After Joint Security Talks http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43465-2001Apr5.html Israelis Fire on Convoy Following U.S.-Initiated Meeting By Daniel Williams Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, April 6, 2001; Page A26 JERUSALEM, April 5 -- Senior Palestinian security officials came under Israeli gunfire early today as they entered the Gaza Strip just hours after meeting Israeli officials at the home of the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv. The incident quickly poisoned a U.S. attempt to revive security cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. After the meeting, three Palestinian officials -- Public Security head Abdel-Razek Majaydeh, Preventive Security chief Mohammed Dahlan and top intelligence officer Amin Hindi -- were ferried to the Gaza border in U.S. Embassy vehicles. At some point after the three boarded their own jeeps and a silver Mercedes-Benz, bullets and shrapnel hit the convoy. As the jeeps sped away, one flipped over and two bodyguards suffered broken limbs. "The shooting was planned. . . . We could have been killed," Hindi said. Israeli officials said the Palestinians shot first and that Palestinian gunmen left their cars to continue shooting from nearby buildings. The Israelis offered to join the Palestinians in investigating the incident. However, Brig. Gen. Yair Naveh, who commands Israel's Gaza division, said after the incident that his soldiers "acted appropriately." An Israeli Foreign Ministry official said, "We cannot justify the shooting, but we think we can explain it." The outbursts marred the reentry of U.S. officials into face-to-face talks between the sides. Israeli and Palestinian security officers met near Tel Aviv at the residence of U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk; a CIA official presided. Both Palestinian and Israeli officials described the get-together as an exploration of whether the sides can revive the cooperation that ended six months ago when the Palestinian uprising erupted. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the meeting was "positive and useful." After daylight, however, violence flared throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A top official of the militant Islamic Jihad movement, which rejects compromise with Israel, was assassinated in the West Bank city of Jenin when a public phone exploded as he made a call. Palestinian officials said Israeli planes flying near the city detonated the hidden booby trap by remote control. Israel had accused the victim, Iyad Hardan, of masterminding bomb attacks on civilians inside Israel, including one that killed two Israelis in December. The Palestinian Authority, which controls about 20 percent of the West Bank and two-thirds of Gaza, had jailed Hardan on occasion but had permitted frequent furloughs. Today, he had attended classes at a Jenin university. Hardan made the fatal phone call just outside the jail's gates. Islamic Jihad officials blamed not only the Israelis but also the Palestinian Authority, suggesting that Palestinians connived in setting the trap, and they vowed revenge. "Israel will regret this. We can inflict damage," said Ramadan Shalah, an Islamic Jihad official speaking in Damascus, Syria. In Gaza, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian who was throwing stones at a fortified Israeli position. His death came as the Palestinians were holding "Children's Day" to protest the killing of youths and children. By late evening, the Israeli army reported mortar attacks on settlements and army positions in the north and south of the Gaza Strip. There were no reports of injuries. But later the Israelis used helicopter gunships and mortars to attack Palestinian security outposts. Raanan Gissin, a government spokesman, said Israel has expanded its list of punitive targets to include Palestinian units in places where Palestinian fire originated. Previously, Israel had targeted units suspected of direct involvement in attacks. Besides the security talks held late Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with top Palestinian negotiators in Greece despite Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pledge not to negotiate as long as Palestinians are violently resisting Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Sharon also acknowledged that his son, Omri, had traveled to Gaza on Sunday to speak with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The talks had been kept secret for three days. Sharon defended himself against complaints from the right that he was negotiating under fire, saying that his son had gone only to tell Arafat that the government would "not negotiate under fire." In another move likely to anger Palestinians, Sharon announced plans to build another 700 houses at two West Bank settlements, in Maaleh Adumin next to Jerusalem and in Alfei Menashe, near Qalqilya. During their discussions with Peres, Palestinian negotiators insisted that they could not talk if settlement construction continued. The Bush administration reacted sharply to the construction plans. Boucher, at his regular State Department briefing in Washington, described the move as "provocative." C 2001 The Washington Post Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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