Israelis Kill 2 Palestinians Amid Discussions of Cease-Fire Plan
A senior Palestinian official said in remarks published today that the Palestinian leadership supported a proposed one-year cease-fire in the conflict, to put the onus for ending the violence on Israel.

The comments by the official, Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, referred to a truce proposed by Egypt last month during talks in Cairo with the main Palestinian nationalist and Islamist factions.

The Fatah faction of the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, has said it accepts the plan to end armed attacks. But some major militant groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and an armed offshoot of Fatah rejected it, demanding that Israel cease killing Palestinians before signing any deal to end armed attacks in the 28-month-old conflict.

"We do not expect the Israeli government will stop its escalation against our people even if the Palestinian factions stopped their actions, but in that case the whole world will see for itself who is responsible for escalating the conflict," Mr. Abbas, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, told the Palestinian newspaper Al Ayyam.

"Therefore the accusations will be directed at Israel rather than the Palestinians," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "This is why we agreed to freeze military activities for one year."

Mr. Abbas, who has been cited as a potential successor to Mr. Arafat, said he expected that the Cairo talks would resume, possibly next week, and that he hoped the proposal would eventually win the backing of additional factions needed to make a truce hold.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/international/middleeast/23MIDE.html