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Palestinians on Tuesday postponed a second summit meeting between Israeli and Palestinian premiers, putting off high-level contacts over implementing a US-backed Mideast peace plan.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was behind the delay, said a senior Palestinian official. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said Arafat wanted to send a message that he, and not Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, is in charge of negotiations with Israel.
On Tuesday Arafat met with the PLO executive committee, where Abbas is his deputy. The official said Arafat wanted to discuss the latest Israeli proposals for security arrangements before approving another summit.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas met on May 17, the first Israeli-Palestinian summit meeting since the violence erupted in September 2000. Abbas took office April 30; Israel is boycotting Arafat, charging that he is involved in terrorism.
Officials in Sharon's office said no new summit date was set, but Israel Radio said it might take place Thursday.
Officials are arranging a three-way summit with US President George W. Bush, Sharon and Abbas early next month, possibly in Jordan. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday that concrete results could be expected. "The President would not bother coming all the way out here to leave without a decision of some kind," Shalom told Israel TV.
The peace plan, called a "road map," is sponsored by the "Quartet" of Mideast mediators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia. It begins with a halt to nearly 32 months of bloody Palestinian-Israeli violence and leads to a full Palestinian state in 2005. Israel conditionally accepted the plan on Sunday, a month after the Palestinians approved the formula and insisted that he be implemented unchanged.
Violence continued on Tuesday.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed a 16-year-old they said was throwing a firebomb. Two children, ages 7 and 9, were critically wounded in clashes with the military, Palestinian hospital officials said.
Five Palestinian children, a Palestinian woman and a police officer were injured Tuesday after accidentally detonating explosives in the West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian security officials said. The children found the explosives in two plastic bags under a tree and accidentally detonated the first bag. After a police officer arrived, the second bag exploded, seriously injuring him, the officials said.
Late Monday, Israeli soldiers fired on four diplomatic vehicles in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, diplomats said. No one was hurt. Peter Lundberg, an official from the Swedish Consulate in Jerusalem, said that two bullets hit the windshield of the Swiss Consulate's armored car, and that small-arms fire also was directed at other cars from Sweden, Denmark and the European Union.
Military sources said the Israeli army had established roadblocks at the entrance to Beit Hanoun to prevent Palestinians militants from leaving the area. The sources said shots had been fired in the air when vehicles tried to skirt the roadblocks.
Israeli forces have been in control of the Beit Hanoun area in northeastern Gaza since May 15, trying to stop Palestinians from firing homemade rockets at an Israeli town about a kilometer (half a mile) from the Gaza-Israel fence. However, another rocket hit the town on Tuesday, Israel Radio said. No one was hurt.
(China Daily May 28, 2003)
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