Saturday, August 31, 2002

U.S. Envoy Meets Palestinian and European Officials
Israeli helicopter gunships killed five Palestinians including two children in a missile strike on Saturday, shaking U.S. efforts to broker Palestinian security reforms in the hope of producing a truce.

Two Apache gunships attacked at Tubas village near the West Bank city of Jenin in the afternoon, one missile obliterated a car and three people in the vehicle, Tubas Mayor Diab Abu Khezaran told Reuters.

Medical officials identified them as a militant linked Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, as well as two teenagers, neither of them combatants.

Witnesses said a second missile struck a nearby house -- apparently overshooting the target -- and killed a boy, 9, and a girl, 10, and wounding seven others.

``What is the sense of hitting a building with no militants or wanted men inside, only civilians?'' Abu Khezaran said.

Fresh from what he termed a ``fruitful'' meeting with U.S. Deputy of State Satterfield on Palestinian security reform, Nabil Shaath, Palestinian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, expressed outrage at the ``filthy, appalling crime.''

``It is a repetition of previous assassination crimes conducted by Israel aimed at escalating the military situation to avoid sitting at the negotiating table,'' Shaath told Reuters.

Satterfield is reported to be trying to bring Palestinians and the United States closer to implementing security reforms regarded as crucial by Israel and Washington to reviving political talks on a Palestinian state.

A U.S. embassy spokesman expressed regret at the loss of innocent life in Tubas, but said Satterfield's mission would continue.

Earlier, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak al-Yahya said there had been ``positive feedback'' from the U.S. envoy about sending experts, training and equipment to help restructure security services.

Israeli troops in Ramallah arrested Hassan Yousef, a senior Hamas political leader on Saturday. The Islamic organization vowed anew to continue what it called its resistance.

Discussion of Washington helping Palestinian security services follows Arafat's comments in August in which he said there was an agreement Americans, Egyptian and Jordanians would ``come and administer the training of our security branches.''

The latest talks also aim to strengthen a fragile security deal that Israelis and Palestinians struck last week, whereby Israel is to ease its military clampdown in the West Bank and Gaza in return for Palestinian security forces ensuring calm.

Palestinians accuse Israel of abandoning the ``Gaza-Bethlehem First'' arrangement that has frayed as violence persists.

The Israeli army has vacated the West Bank city of Bethlehem but says it will only leave six more cities and lift controls over civilians in Gaza when Palestinian police follow through on new commitments to curb militant groups.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html

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