- Violence surged in the Mideast, as snipers struck down
two Israeli soldiers in the flashpoint city of Hebron and the army shot
dead seven Palestinians in southern Israel and the Gaza Strip.
-
- While the two sides traded punches, a high-ranking US
envoy visited Israel to brief the Jewish state on the possibility of a
war on Iraq which looms on the horizon.
-
- And diplomats around the region were laying the groundwork
for next week's meetings of the United States, Russia, European Union and
the United Nations on a plan to establish a Palestinian state alongside
Israel by 2005.
-
- Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher met with chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat in Amman to discuss the "very dangerous"
situation in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. He met separately
with the European Union's Middle East envoy, Miguel Angel Moratinos.
-
- The situation "calls for a serious and stepped-up
Arab action to put the peace process back on its right track," Moasher
told state news agency Petra after meeting with Erakat.
-
- He insisted on the "importance of finalising the
'roadmap' and its adoption by the (diplomatic) quartet before the meeting
it will hold on December 20," he added.
-
- Meanwhile, UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen briefed
Lebanese leaders on the "roadmap" and, in Oman, France's minister
of state for foreign affairs, Renaud Muselier, vowed to put his weight
behind the plan.
-
- However, the Washington talks could easily be undermined
if Thursday's killings herald a new wave of violence.
-
- Gunmen shot dead a male and female soldier Thursday night
as they guarded a settlement outpost not far from the spot of a roadside
ambush that killed 12 Israelis last month as they headed to pray at a shrine
revered by Jews and Muslims alike.
-
- The army said Thursday it had demoted several officers
over the November ambush.
-
- A Palestinian militant was killed in a gunfight with
Israeli soldiers on late Thursday just outside the Gaza Strip in southern
Israel, an army spokesman said.
-
- It was the second deadly border skirmish of the day after
the army shot dead five men spotted crawling towards a no-go area near
the Karni crossing point between the northern Gaza Strip and Israel.
-
- The army did not specify whether the men were armed but
said it had earlier received information that a group of militants was
planning to infiltrate.
-
- The bodies were discovered in the morning with ladders
next to them. The five were not immediately identified nor handed back
to the Palestinians.
-
- Border police also gunned down one of two Palestinian
militants trying to infiltrate a settlement in the southern Gaza Strip.
-
- The military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, claimed responsibility for
the botched assault on the Gush Katif settlement.
-
- Meanwhile, US Under Secretary of Defence Douglas Feith
was in Jerusalem to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence
Minister Shaul Mofaz to discuss common military issues, including a possible
US attack on Iraq and Israeli fears of a retaliation by Baghdad.
-
- Feith and Mofaz, who is to travel to the United States
next week for talks with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan, discussed a US-Israeli military exercise scheduled
for next month.
-
- Public radio said the wargames would include Patriot
missiles and Israeli Arrow interceptor missiles that could serve as a crucial
air defense against Iraqi Scuds in case of a repeat of attacks during the
1991 Gulf War.
-
- Two batteries of Patriot missiles arrived in Israel late
Wednesday and are to remain in Israel after the exercise is completed,
state radio said.
-
- Feith reiterated the US stance that Washington would
"do everything it can to make sure that regional security" was
maintained and that Israel was "not subject to American restrictions
... and had the rights of any sovereign state to defend itself."
-
- In other developments, a Tel Aviv district court ruled
Thursday that it had jurisdiction to try West Bank Fatah chief and intifada
icon Marwan Barghuti for murder and heading a "terrorist" organisation.
-
- The trial of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's lieutenant
started three months ago, but his defence team has consistently argued
that the court was not competent to try him on the grounds that he is a
Palestinian MP and has parliamentary immunity.
-
- Jawad Boulos, another one of Barghuti's lawyers, said
the defence team would lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court.
-
- Barghuti and his defence team have tried to seize on
the much-publicised trial to put Israel's occupation of the Palestinian
territories in the dock.
-
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