- The Middle East moved closer to a new war yesterday as
Ariel Sharon declared the Arafat era over and moved tanks into three West
Bank towns.
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- Israel also killed a leading Palestinian militant, and
the PLO claimed to have evidence that the Jewish state was plotting to
assassinate its leader, Yassir Arafat.
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- The rapid collapse of the peace process followed the
murder of Rehavam Zeevi, the Israeli Tourism Minister, by the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on Wednesday. Mr Sharon said: "Arafat
has seven days to impose absolute quiet in the (occupied) territories.
If not, we will go to war against him. As far as I am concerned, the era
of Arafat is over."
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- The Palestinians suspect that Israel has decided on its
response to the killing of Mr Zeevi. Nabil Abu Rdainah, an Arafat aide,
said that the Palestinian Authority had evidence that Israel was planning
to assassinate Mr Arafat.
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- Israel's Security Cabinet is understood to have sent
a blunt message to Mr Arafat that unless Israel's conditions for the extradition
of the killers and the outlawing of all Palestinian terror organisations
were adhered to within one week he "would be treated in the way in
which the US treats the Taleban".
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- Although there was some confusion about the precise timing
of the new Israeli deadline for the surrender of the PFLP killers - whose
identity ministers claimed to know - officials said that it would run out
at the end of the seven-day mourning period for Mr Zeevi.
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- In a reflection of the mood across much of Israel as
Mr Zeevi, a former army general, was buried with full military honours
in Jerusalem, his family and other mourners called for retaliation on a
massive scale to avenge his murder.
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- The latest Israeli "targeted killing" near
the West Bank town of Bethlehem was that of Ataf Abayat, a member of the
Tanzim militia of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction. He died instantly in a car
bomb explosion. He was high on Israel's wanted list and blamed for the
recent death of a woman settler.
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- At least three other Palestinians were killed in clashes
across the West Bank, as Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian towns of
Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah.
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- A 10-year-old schoolgirl was killed in Jenin and two
Palestinian security men using automatic rifles to try to prevent tanks
advancing into Ramallah also died. The Palestinians said that four other
schoolgirls and three adults were wounded in Jenin.
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- The killing of Mr Abayat, and two other Palestinian militants
who were with him, led to reprisals by Palestinian gunmen, who fired on
the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, which Palestinians regard as an illegal Jewish
settlement.
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- As darkness fell, Israeli military sources said that
several Jewish-owned houses had been hit but no one injured. The area was
put on alert for mortar attacks. In another incident in the West Bank an
Israeli man was shot and killed, while two of his companions were wounded.
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- Israeli sources refused to comment on the killing of
Mr Abayat, who had recently been picked up by the Palestinian police and
released soon after. He was on a wanted list Israel had given Mr Arafat.
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- The Palestinian Authority said that it had arrested 11
PFLP members, although it was not clear if they included the suspected
assassins. Ziad Abu Zayad, a Palestinian Cabinet minister, said: "If
indeed the people behind Zeevi's murder are inside Palestinian Authority
territory, Arafat needs to arrest them and bring them to trial, but not
to extradite them to Israel."
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- Sending tanks into the Palestinian towns, the Israeli
Cabinet said that it reserved the right to enter Palestinian-ruled territory
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip whenever "there is an operational
need to act against terror".
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- Even moderate Israelis appeared ready for a new cycle
of violence. Yossi Sarid, leader of the main left-wing Meretz party, said
that the country was heading inexorably towards a repeat of the Lebanon
invasion of 1982, except this time against the Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
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- In advance of the harsher action against Mr Arafat, Mr
Sharon nominated four senior ministers to fly to the US to convince public
and government opinion there of his conviction that the Palestinian leader
was not cracking down on terrorism.
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- Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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