JENIN — Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man in a West Bank raid on Wednesday and Egyptian envoys began talks with Palestinian militant leaders to bolster a cease-fire critical to a new peace process with Israel. The U.S.-backed "road map" plan is troubled both by militant threats to abandon the truce and high-level discontent within the Palestinians’ mainstream Fatah faction over moderate Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ performance in peace talks.
Neither of which is the Israeli’s problem
Military sources said the Palestinian was killed after he opened fire on soldiers arresting a wanted man in an area of the northern West Bank from which Islamist militants sent a suicide bomber into Israel on Monday, violating the 10-day-old truce.
Bam! Die Zionist pigs! Ow Hey! that hurt!
Senior security officials from Egypt, which helped broker the truce, met Palestinian faction chiefs in Gaza on how to preserve the pact amid warnings from militants that it would collapse unless Israel frees thousands of prisoners.
Then it’s gonna collapse? Hokay
"The Egyptians are here to calm things down and help the truce endure," said a Palestinian official after the delegation began a meeting with Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
| Y'see, the ceasefire, which is only temporary, is gonna collapse unless they get their demands met, even though the demands aren't in the road map. That's all Israel's fault. Damn them Jews for their perfidy! |
Palestinian security sources said Israeli forces entered the village of Burqin close to Jenin before dawn, burst into a Palestinian home and arrested a 22-year-old militant.
| "Drop the high explosives, Mahmoud! Y'r under arrest!" |
The sources said that moments later soldiers fired at the neighboring home of the militant’s 27-year-old brother, who they said was killed while looking out a window. They also said the man’s wife was shot in the head and seriously wounded.
Thought they said he opened fire in paragraph 3?
| He was looking out the window to aim, apparently... |
About 2,000 demonstrators marched through Jenin afterward holding up photographs of relatives arrested by Israeli troops in raids. "No truce without the release of all prisoners in Israeli jails, without exception!" they chanted. President Bush unfurled the "road map" at a peace summit on June 4 and Palestinian faction leaders declared a truce, but some local militant cells refuse to abide by it.
| Please!... My heart! Sudden suprises like that... Quick, Ethel! My pills! |
Monday’s suicide attack, in which an Israeli woman was killed in her home, was the first since the truce was announced.
| "I mean, hey! What's one little corpse, huh?" |
Internal Fatah opposition confronting Abbas arose largely from his inability to persuade Israel to free up to 8,000 prisoners. It has agreed to release a few hundred but Abbas needs many more out to reduce the popular appeal of militants loath to abandon an uprising against Israel begun in 2000. Weighing in to shore up the moderate Palestinian premier, the United States planned to provide direct assistance to the Palestinian Authority. "(Bush) is confident in his leadership and looks forward to continuing to work with him," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said during a South Africa visit by the president.
| "At least until the Paleos throw him out or render him totally ineffective. Or bump him off." |
A senior administration official played down Abbas’s threat as part of "internal Palestinian machinations," saying it was "sometimes their way of doing business."
| He's referring to bluff, bluster, threat, then kill somebody, demand more than the other side agreed to and do less than your side agreed to, if anything at all... |
Israeli media said John Wolf, Bush’s envoy overseeing steps on the "road map," was pressing the Israeli government to speed up prisoner releases to help Abbas see off hardline foes. Israeli officials dismissed the reports and sharpened calls on Abbas to dismantle militant Palestinian groups, as mandated by the "road map" peace plan envisaging a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005. Abbas has shied from such a crackdown, fearing civil war.
| Kind of like Ein el-Hellhole, only bigger... |
Israel has said members of militant groups and prisoners who committed or orchestrated attacks on Israelis would not go free. Abbas submitted his resignation from Fatah’s Central Committee in the wake of demands that he quit as premier.
| Golly. Wonder who orchestrated the "We want Yasser!" demonstrations? |
In a letter to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Abbas asked the longtime Fatah leader to outline how to proceed with confidence-building steps charted by the "road map."
Putting Arafat on the spot? He doesn’t have any ideas, never did. Just give us land/power/money or the attacks continue
"If (Abbas) rejects their ideas, he will resign as prime minister," a senior official said.
This is a non-starter. Israel will NEVER release all the prisoners. NEVER. So the truce is over. kill all the honchos that poke their heads out: Paleo Whack-A-Mole™ |