- JERUSALEM - Israel sharply
criticised Colin Powell, US secretary of state, on Tuesday for agreeing
to meet later this week the authors of an unofficial peace plan known as
the "Geneva accord", which was launched on Monday.
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- "I think he [Powell] is making a mistake,"
Ehud Olmert, deputy prime minister, told Israel Radio. "I think he
is not helping the process. I think this a wrong step by a representative
of the American administration."
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- Mr Powell has expressed his willingness to meet Yossi
Beilin, an architect of the Oslo accords, and Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former
Palestinian cabinet minister and joint author of the Geneva accord. But
the plan has come under attack by the Israeli government led by Ariel Sharon,
prime minister, with some ministers calling its authors "traitors".
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- Meanwhile, the US says it remains fully behind the "road
map" - an incremental approach towards a two-state solution - but
efforts to coax Israel into compliance appear stalled.
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- Palestinian factions began informal talks in Cairo on
Tuesday aimed at reaching a ceasefire. The official opening of talks is
scheduled for Thursday, when representatives of the militant groups Hamas
and Islamic Jihad are due to arrive. Ahmed Qurei, Palestinian prime minister,
is hoping Israel will agree to a truce if the factions reach a ceasefire
accord.
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- A Palestinian truce agreed last June broke down after
two months, when a Hamas suicide attack killed more than 20 in Jerusalem.
Hamas said this was in response to Israel's killing of 20 Palestinians
during the truce.
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- Violence continued on Tuesday, when Israeli troops shot
dead a Palestinian militant during a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.
The raid followed an Israeli incursion into Ramallah on Monday, which left
four Palestinians, including a six-year-old boy, dead.
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- In a separate development on Tuesday, an Israeli court
convicted two Jewish settlers of stealing explosives, which officials suspected
would be used in an attack on Palestinians. Sentencing will follow at a
later date.
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- The two were arrested driving to East Jerusalem with
40kg of explosives in July. The men were suspected of involvement with
a six-member Jewish cell indicted separately for planning a bomb attack
on a Palestinian girls' school in East Jerusalem in April.
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- One of those convicted, Yitzhak Pas, was the father of
a baby girl shot dead by a Palestinian gunman in Hebron two years ago.
The other was Matityahu Shvu, his brother-in-law.
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