- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The
separate killings of the son of anti-Arab rabbi Meir Kahane and a senior
official of the Palestinian Fatah faction on Sunday raised fears of revenge
attacks that could seal the fate of a last-gasp U.S. peace bid.
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- Jewish settler Binyamin Kahane, 33, and his wife Talia
were killed and five of their children -- aged two months to 10 years --
were wounded when Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank ambushed their van,
the army said.
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- In an attack which Palestinian officials described as
an assassination, Fatah's Thabet Thabet, a 49-year-old dentist, was shot
dead as he left his West Bank house in Tulkarm.
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- "The time has come for action and revenge,"
said Baruch Marzel, an Israeli ultranationalist activist, as thousands
of mourners chanting "Death to Arabs" walked in the Kahanes'
funeral procession through Jewish west Jerusalem.
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- Marwan Barghouthi, one of Fatah's most prominent leaders,
held Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak responsible for the killing of Thabet,
telling Reuters: "Barak has opened the gates of Hell on himself.
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- In New York 10 years ago, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen
assassinated Meir Kahane, founder of the U.S.-based Jewish Defence League
and of Israel's outlawed Kach movement which campaigned to drive Arabs
from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
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- A Palestinian group, the Martyrs of the al-Aqsa Intifada,
claimed responsibility for the attack that killed the late rabbi's son
and daughter-in-law. Without naming Kahane, it said in a fax to a news
agency in Beirut that its gunmen had opened fire at the car of passing
settlers.
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- Barak, facing an uphill fight in a national election
five weeks away, said in a statement: "No violence against Israeli
civilians will shatter our strength or be rewarded, and the murderers will
not escape punishment."
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- Visiting Israeli army headquarters in the West Bank,
he told reporters: "I call on (settlers) and all Israeli citizens
to show restraint and self-control, even in these difficult hours."
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- PALESTINIANS SHOW ANGER
-
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- Angry Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank cities
of Tulkarm, Qalqilya and Nablus called for revenge attacks on Israeli soldiers
and Jews living in settlements deemed illegal under international law.
-
- Israeli soldiers shot and wounded five Palestinians in
the village of al-Khader near Bethlehem in rock-throwing protests that
erupted after Thabet's death, local officials said.
-
- Three Palestinians were wounded in an exchange of fire
with Israeli forces in the divided city of Hebron, also in the West Bank,
hospital officials said.
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- The violence undermined a bid by U.S. President Bill
Clinton to forge an Israeli- Palestinian peace deal before he leaves office
on January 20.
-
- Washington hopes to seal a peace framework to end 52
years of conflict. At least 293 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 43 other
Israelis have been killed since the Intifada uprising erupted three months
ago.
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- A senior Fatah official doubted Israel had killed Thabet
in retaliation for the Kahane killing because the attack on Thabet had
to have been planned and done after study and approval.
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- KAHANE CARRIED SLAIN FATHER'S TORCH
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- Palestinian officials say Israel has killed more than
20 activists from Fatah and other organisations it has targeted since the
uprising began.
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- Binyamin Kahane, who had been jailed himself by Israel
for his activities as part of militant anti-Arab groups, was in his early
30s. He had led a group called Kahane Hai (Kahane Lives) formed after his
father's death.
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- In a commentary appearing this week on a website dedicated
to his father, the son wrote that when the Jewish leadership left and right
was overcome with fear in the face of an Arab revolt, "the torch is
passed" to the faithful few.
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- "Arabs must know that if they cut off the hand of
a Jew, the head of an Arab will be cut off," Tiran Pollack, a Kahane
Hai activist, said on Israeli television.
-
- It was unclear whether Kahane had been targeted personally.
-
- Settlers said Arab gunmen had of late fired at other
Israeli cars in the area, near the settlement of Ofra. On Saturday, Fatah
called for two weeks' escalation of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli
occupation.
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- PALESTINIANS SAY THEY WILL NOT BE RUSHED
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- In Tunis on Sunday, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
briefed Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on a U.S. peace plan
and then flew to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
and Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
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- In Amman, a senior Palestinian negotiator said he hoped
the United States would clarify some points of the plan before Palestinians
gave a final response. "We don't want the time ... factor to be used
as a sword over our necks," Saeb Erekat said.
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- Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said Palestinians
had narrowed their reservations about Clinton's peace ideas.
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- But Barak told his cabinet that a Palestinian rejection
of Clinton's blueprint would force Israel to take a break from peacemaking
to prepare for a unilateral separation pending a Palestinian return to
the peace table.
-
- Opinion polls show Barak's popularity at an all-time
low and forecast that he will be trounced by leading hawk Ariel Sharon
in the February 6 ballot.
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- Seeking to sway a doubtful public, Barak warned his people
on Saturday they would face war if Sharon won the election.
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- Limor Livnat, a leading member of parliament from Sharon's
rightist Likud party, told the radio: "Security must be restored --
and Arik Sharon will know how to do that."
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- Under the proposals detailed by both sides, Palestinians
would be given sovereignty over the upper part of a key Jerusalem holy
site and areas of Arab East Jerusalem.
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- Israel would maintain control over west Jerusalem and
the lower part of the holy site. In return, Palestinians would relinquish
any right of return to Israel for refugees who fled or were forced to flee
their homes in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
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- (Additional reporting by Megan Goldin)
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