Jordan Times
Friday, November 17, 2006
King urges action plan
for Palestinian government
Rockets strike Israel, planes hit Gaza
Agencies
KING ABDULLAH ON Thursday called on Palestinians
to make an action plan in the coming weeks to back their government after
reshuffle.
“Time is crucial now for the Palestinian cause,” King Abdullah was quoted by the
Jordan News Agency, Petra, as telling Secretary General of the Palestinian
National Initiative Mustafa Barghouthi at a meeting at the Royal Court.
Praising Barghouthi’s reconciliation efforts, the Monarch warned that stalemate
in the peace process threatens the entire region.
He reiterated Jordan’s support for Palestinian Authority endeavours to establish
an independent state.
Meanwhile, fighters fired rockets into Israel Thursday after warplanes raided
Gaza, prompting Israeli officials to threaten wider killing raids, and one
minister warning the Palestinian premier should not be immune, Agence France-Presse
reported.
The strikes coincided with an announcement by French President Jacques Chirac
and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero that they, with Italy,
were working on an initiative to revive the moribund peace process.
Their declaration drew a swift rejection from a senior Israeli official, a
welcome from the Palestinian Authority for an international peace conference,
and a guarded response from the EU's Middle East envoy Marc Otte.
On the ground, however, the two sides remained prey to continued violence, one
day after a mother of two was killed when a salvo of Palestinian rockets crashed
into Israel in the first such lethal attack from Gaza since July 2005.
Israeli planes carried out five overnight air raids across the Gaza Strip,
targeting five buildings the military said were used by fighters. Palestinian
medics said five people were wounded.
Palestinian fighters fired two rockets into southern Israel Thursday, one of
which damaged a chicken coup on a kibbutz, but neither caused any casualties, an
army spokesman said.
In the West Bank, a 25-year-old Palestinian activist was killed by an Israeli
army sniper during a raid into a West Bank refugee camp before troops also
staged an incursion into the territory's political capital, Ramallah.
At a meeting with army chiefs in Tel Aviv, Defence Minister Amir Peretz ordered
them to draw up new initiatives for Gaza, army radio said.
"We will move against those who are involved in the firing of rockets, starting
from their leaders and down to the last of their terrorists," Peretz said on
Wednesday.
His outspoken colleague, Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, advocated
"targeted killing" operations, branded assassinations by the Palestinians, and
warned that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh should not be immune.
"Targeted killing operations must be broadened, not only against those who fire
rockets but against their leaders," he said, in a direct allusion to leaders of
Haniyeh's Islamist Hamas movement, whose armed wing claims rocket attacks.
"If the rockets do not stop, they [Hamas leaders] will have no respite, from the
prime minister to the last of them," Ben Eliezer warned.
Nevertheless Israeli leaders freely admitted they had no solution to the near
constant rocket threat in the south since troops withdrew from the Gaza Strip in
2005 after a 38-year occupation.
Flying home from California, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged that rocket
fire would not end in one swoop, but he said that operations would continue
"according to circumstance".
"The rocket fire will not end with one blow," he told reporters travelling with
him, sentiments echoed by Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres.
"We are making all efforts and a lot of people are risking their lives. But the
unequivocal way to stop it [rocket fire] completely has yet to be found," the
Nobel peace laureate told army radio.
Israel has been waging nearly continuous military operations inside the Gaza
Strip for nearly five months, launched in a bid to retrieve a soldier captured
by Palestinian fighters in late June and also to halt rocket attacks.
More than 300 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers have since died in the
territory, but the rocket attacks continue and the conscript is still a captive.
Despite the violence, Chirac and Zapatero confirmed at a conference in Spain
that they and Italy were working on an initiative for peace in the Middle East.
They were seeking a ceasefire, a prisoner swap and an international peace
conference, while also backing a prospective Palestinian unity government and a
fact-finding mission to the Palestinian territories, Zapatero said.
A senior Israeli official, who refused to be named, rejected the initiative
outright as "hasty". European Union envoy Marc Otte counselled caution while a
spokesman for the Palestinian Authority welcomed the idea of an international
peace conference.
Iran increases Palestinian aid to $120m
In another development, Iran has stepped up its aid to the Palestinians by
donating some $120 million to the government and is ready to give more, the
Palestinian foreign minister said on Thursday.
"Iran has handed out until now over $120 million and will supply more aid. Its
support is very important for us," Mahmoud Zahar said following talks with
Iran's top national security official Ali Larijani.
"Iran is a major actor in the region and if we can obtain the support of Arab
and Islamic countries we will have the assurance that there will be no step
backwards on the Palestinian issue," he added.
The sum of $120 million is more than double the pledge of $50 million made by
Iran in April after the suspension of funding by the United States and European
Union following Hamas' election victory.
Iran, which also does not recognise Israel, denies allegations that it supplies
arms to Palestinian groups, saying its support is of a moral nature only.
"We stand by the side of Hamas and the Palestinian government in these dramatic
times when the Palestinian people are subjected to an economic blockade," said
Larijani.
He added that Iran "supports the formation of a government of national unity in
Palestine and supports a government that is supported by Hamas”.