A two-pronged effort to end a surge of violence and arrange an Israeli withdrawal from the northern Gaza Strip gathered momentum Sunday, with an Egyptian delegation meeting Hamas leaders, and Israeli and Palestinian officials preparing to meet Monday to discuss details of the pullout.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf, at the head of an American team whose task is to monitor implementation of the “road map” peace plan, was to hold meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to help end the violence and move ahead with the plan.
The intensified contacts followed a week of bloodshed in which more than 50 people were killed, and Hamas leaders and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed a fight to the finish. American pressure and Egyptian mediation appear to have pulled both sides back from the brink and reopened the door to talks.
On Saturday night, Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, a senior official in the Israeli Defense Ministry, met the Palestinian security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, to discuss a proposed Israeli pullout from the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, which was seized several weeks ago by Israeli forces in response to Hamas rocket firings at the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
Under the pullout plan, Palestinian forces would assume security control of the area and prevent militants from firing rockets.
Security plan
An Israeli Defense Ministry spokeswoman said a meeting was planned Monday in which the Palestinians were expected to present a security plan for taking over the area.
A withdrawal in the northern Gaza Strip could be followed by a pullout from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the spokeswoman said.
Israeli troops have controlled most Palestinian cities in the West Bank since they entered them a year ago in response to suicide attacks.
Dahlan proposed an Israeli pullout from large areas of the Gaza Strip as well as Bethlehem and Ramallah, after the Palestinian leadership said over the weekend that it was prepared to take over any area vacated by the Israelis.
The road map calls for Israeli troop withdrawals and a Palestinian crackdown on militants as part of mutual steps to halt violence and resume negotiations leading to a peace agreement and a Palestinian state in 2005.
In tandem with the security talks, Egyptian mediators met with leaders of Hamas to discuss proposals for a halt to attacks on Israelis in exchange for a cessation of Israeli targeted killings of militants, incursions into Palestinian territory and home demolitions.
Last week a Hamas bomber struck an Israeli bus, killing himself and 17 other people, and Israeli helicopter strikes on militants in Gaza killed 25 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
Despite a series of declarations last week by Hamas officials rejecting any cease-fire, Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the group, indicated Sunday that it was considering proposals for a truce.
Zahar said in a telephone interview that the group was holding consultations locally and with its leadership abroad to formulate a response.
“We are playing politics, we have to put our emotions aside,” Zahar said. “We are not saying absolutely yes, and we are not saying absolutely no. We have to listen, evaluate, discuss and decide.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is expected to travel to Gaza to join the talks Monday.
Sharon said at the weekly meeting of his Cabinet that “Israel would welcome a cease-fire, should one be attained,” according to a Cabinet communique.
However, Sharon did not rule out more targeted killings of militants or further military operations in Palestinian areas.
“Provided that Israel is not attacked, we will not retaliate except for essential operations of self-defense, such as in the case of a `ticking bomb,'” Sharon was quoted as saying. “Should there be terror activity in an area defined as being under [Palestinian] responsibility, we retain the right to act in those areas.”
Sharon said the intensity of recent Israeli operations against Hamas had brought American pressure on the Palestinian government to rein in the group.
More violence
Sporadic violence continued Sunday in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli force that entered Beit Hanoun fatally shot a militant in what Palestinians called a targeted killing but the army said was a gunbattle that erupted after soldiers looking for rocket launchers came under heavy fire.
Later in the day, militants fired five rockets into southern Israel, causing no damage or casualties, the army said.
In another development, Peace Now, an Israeli group that monitors settlements, said settlers had put up four new outposts in the West Bank in recent days, even as the army began removing some of the unauthorized sites as part of Israel’s obligations under the road map.
Also Sunday, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” that U.S. forces could be used to help “root out terrorism” in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, including going after Hamas. But he said any such action was “down the trail” and would require careful consideration.
