2016-07-27

JERUSALEM, Oct. 18 (AP)--Palestinian militiamen fired at Israeli troops and rock-throwing erupted at friction points in the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday, despite Yasser Arafat's call to street activists to observe a U.S.-brokered cease-fire with Israel. Still, neither side walked away from the hard-won truce.

Despite the persistent tensions, high-level Israeli and Palestinian security officials were meeting to find ways to carry out the promises made to President Clinton at the Mideast summit in Egypt.

Over the next two days, Israel is to withdraw troops and tanks from friction areas and lift a military siege of Palestinian cities, while the Palestinians are to cease shooting attacks on Israeli positions.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, said Israel would not walk away from the truce over sporadic stone-throwing.

``What we look at first is the volume of opening fire against us,'' he told The Associated Press. ``We are experienced enough to differentiate between sporadic events and a wave of violence directed by the Palestinian leadership.''

Arafat's Palestinian Authority reaffirmed its commitment to the cease-fire, saying Wednesday it has ``issued strict orders to all Palestinians involved to follow through on the implementation of what has been agreed on'' at the Mideast summit in Sharm el-Sheik.

The appeal appeared aimed especially at Arafat's Fatah faction, whose armed militias have taken in a lead in shooting attacks on Israeli positions.

In the West Bank town of Nablus, a Fatah leader, Ali Farraj, told 4,000 cheering supporters his faction would press on with the three-week uprising in which at least 102 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.

``The uprising must continue. The clashes must continue,'' said Farraj, speaking during the funeral of a Fatah activist.

After the burial, dozens of mourners marched to an Israeli checkpoint and threw stones. They were later joined by several gunmen who shot at Israeli soldiers, drawing Israeli return fire. Near the town of Jenin, shots were fired at an Israeli jeep but there were no injuries.

Fatah leaders suggested privately that shootings would cease immediately if the order came from Arafat.

The Fatah leader in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, softened his words Wednesday, saying ``it's not easy to control the feelings of the people.'' On Tuesday, Barghouti had said the uprising would continue, regardless of the truce.

Still, there were rock-throwing clashes across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and more than two dozen Palestinians were injured by Israeli live fire and rubber bullets. An Israeli soldier was hurt by a firebomb in a clash near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said it has pulled back some tanks from the outskirts of Nablus in a symbolic gesture and would withdraw more heavy equipment from other points once it appeared the violence had ebbed.

Meanwhile, Israel radio reported Wednesday that the Israeli army arrested eight Palestinians involved in the mob killing of two Israeli reserve soldiers last week in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Sneh, the deputy defense minister, had no immediate comment.

The radio report said among those tracked down by Israeli agents was a Palestinian man who had emerged from the scene of the killing with his bloodied hands triumphantly raised in the air, to signal to the frenzied crowd that the deed had been done. The photograph of the man appeared on front pages across the world.

The eight were brought back to Jerusalem for trial, according to reports. It was unclear when or exactly where they were captured.

Palestinian officials said several people were missing from Ramallah.

Israeli Cabinet ministers had pledged that Israel would track down the killers.

Parts of the mob killing where filmed by Italian TV and broadcast around the world. Israeli newspapers have printed more than a dozen photographs of Palestinians present during the mob attack. There were also reports that 16 other Palestinians had been arrested in "Area B" on the West Bank adjacent to Ramallah. In that area, the Palestinians have civil control but the Israelis are in charge of security.

The Sharm el-Sheik summit, meanwhile, hampered Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's efforts to bring hawkish opposition leader Ariel Sharon into his government. At the summit, Clinton had told both leaders he would assess within two weeks whether the situation has calmed down enough to allow a resumption of peace talks.

Sharon has sharply attacked Barak in the past for making sweeping concessions to Arafat at the Mideast summit at Camp David in July. Sharon said Wednesday that he would not join the government unless Barak called off the negotiations.

The Israeli parliament returns from its summer recess next week, and at this stage Barak does not command a majority--making him vulnerable by the opposition's push for early elections.

Meaaanwhile, in Riiyadh, Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday to curb the radical Islamic group Hezbollah, calling its kidnapping of Israelis a dangerous provocation.

But Albright emerged from the two hour and 20-minute meeting in a Saudi palace without a commitment from Assad, according to a senior U.S. official. In their first extended encounter, Assad told Albright that Hezbollah was a largely social organization gaining in influence among ordinary Arabs.

Assad also cautioned Albright that anti-Israeli sentiment was on the rise in the streets of the Arab world and should be taken into account by U.S. policy-makers, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Albright and Assad spoke one-on-one for 50 minutes, without the aides who sat in on the rest of their session.

Albright had a cursory 10-minute conversation with Syria's new leader at the funeral of his father, Hafez Assad, in Damascus last June. Wednesday's meeting was described as a serious policy discussion as well as a general get-acquainted session.

There was scant discussion of the stalled Israeli-Syrian peace talks. They broke down in January when Syria rejected an offer by Israel to recover the strategic Golan Heights because Israel was unwilling to throw in a strip of territory along the Sea of Galilee, Israel's primary source of scarce water.

Syria lost the border territory in the 1967 Middle East war.

Even though Assad did not take up Albright's pitch that Syria, which effectively controls Lebanon, should curb Hezbollah operations there, she felt it was important to make the point, the official said. Assad ``certainly heard it'' and did not dispute Syria had enormous influence in Lebanon, the official said.

Israel has withdrawn troops from Lebanon, where some 30,000 Syrian troops remain. The U.S. wants the Syrians should use their influence in Lebanon to halt its campaign against Israelis, the official said.

The meeting with Assad was arranged by Saudi officials after Albright briefed them Tuesday on the emergency summit in Egypt that the United States hopes will produce a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians.

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