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Sharon: Peace depends on Palestinians
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-13 20:25
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The new Palestinian leadership is not doing enough to
restrain militants, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday, after
attackers blew up an Israeli army outpost in Gaza and killed five soldiers.
The comments marked the first time since Yasser Arafat's death last month
that Sharon criticized Arafat's moderate successor, Mahmoud Abbas, though he did
not mention Abbas by name. It was not clear whether the outpost attack would
disrupt the fledgling good will between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Islamic militant group Hamas and gunmen with ties to the ruling Fatah
movement claimed responsibility for the attack they dubbed "Operation Angry
Volcano." Hamas said it had dug a half-mile-long tunnel over four months to
reach the outpost.
The attack at sundown Sunday was seen as a challenge to Abbas, who has
been trying to persuade militants to halt attacks on Israelis ahead of
Palestinian presidential elections Jan. 9. Abbas has criticized the armed
Palestinian uprising and enjoys the support of the international community.
Hamas has not given Abbas any guarantees. However, it has limited its
attacks to the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, as part of what appears to be a
tacit agreement not to carry out bombings inside Israel.
Hamas and other militants have stepped up attacks on Israeli soldiers and
settlers in Gaza in recent months, as part of an internal Palestinian power
struggle ahead of the planned Israeli withdrawal from the strip in 2005.
Sharon said Monday that progress in peace efforts "depends on the
Palestinians, if they will act against terror.'
"By now, we don't see any change," Sharon said, speaking in English.
"Myself and my government would like to move forward toward peace, but it
depends on one thing, that it should be quiet and I'm really sorry to say that
by now we don't see any changes," he added.
Israel has not said whether it will freeze the possible release of up to
200 Palestinian prisoners. In a first response, Israeli helicopters fired five
missiles early Monday at what the army said were Hamas weapons workshops in Gaza
City. There were no casualties.
The five soldiers killed Sunday were identified as Bedouin Arabs, all
members of Desert Reconnaissance Battalion. The battalion, which consists
largely of Bedouins, patrols the Egypt-Gaza border, one of the most dangerous
areas during more than four years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Five soldiers were wounded in the double blast, which brought down
several structures in the outpost. After the initial explosion, Palestinian
gunmen rushed the base, followed by another, smaller blast. A gunman who escaped
said he tried to kidnap a wounded soldier, but killed him because the soldier
resisted.
The preparations for the attack and the explosion were filmed by Hamas, a
method used in the past by the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which is
increasingly training and funding Palestinian militants.
The Hamas video showed masked men lowering barrels presumably containing
the explosives into the tunnel. Another shot showed a huge black plume of
smoking rising into the air.
The Israeli military said Monday that the tunnels have emerged as a major
threat against troops in Gaza, and that there is no easy way to detect them.
Palestinian smugglers have been digging tunnels in Gaza for decades.
During the current round of fighting, tunnels have been used increasingly to
smuggle weapons into Gaza and also to attack outposts.
Maj. Sharon Feingold, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the military has
spend millions of dollars on technology aimed at detecting tunnels, so far to no
avail. "So now the army is using low-teach means, intelligence and searches for
houses where the tunnels start," she said. "It's a strategic problem for the
state of Israel."
In another development, imprisoned Palestinian uprising leader Marwan
Barghouti on Sunday withdrew from the race for Palestinian Authority (news - web
sites) president, boosting Abbas' chances to win the Jan. 9 election.
Barghouti had wavered in recent weeks, twice announcing his candidacy and
twice withdrawing. Barghouti, 45, is a leader of Fatah's young guard, which has
complained that it is being kept from leadership positions.
His candidacy had threatened to split Fatah and open the way for a third
candidate to win. Since announcing his renewed bid a week ago, he has come under
growing pressure, including from his supporters, to withdraw.
Abbas, 69, is part of the old guard of politicians who returned with Arafat
from exile in the 1990s. He has promised reforms, including holding internal
Fatah elections in August, in hopes of appeasing the restless younger activists.
In a letter from prison read at a news conference Sunday, Barghouti endorsed
Abbas, but was harshly critical of the Fatah leadership. Barghouti listed
several demands, but said they were not a condition for his support of Abbas.
Barghouti rejected efforts to disarm militant groups, a key Israeli demand,
and said no agreement should be made without release of all prisoners.
Israel has said Barghouti, serving five life terms after convictions in
deadly Palestinian attacks, will not be freed.
Polls last week showed Barghouti and Abbas running a close race.
In Israeli politics, meanwhile, teams from Sharon's Likud Party were
negotiating with the moderate Labor and ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas parties to
expand Sharon's shaky coalition to enable implementation of Sharon's Gaza
pullout plan next year.
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