A total of 33 Palestinians were killed in violence this
week, most of them during an Israeli military offensive in the
Gaza Strip that Israel said targeted the Islamic militant group
Hamas.
A senior Palestinian official said in remarks published on
Saturday that the Palestinian leadership backed a proposed
one-year cease-fire in the uprising to put the onus of the
Middle East conflict on Israel.
The comments by Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen,
referred to a truce proposed by Egypt last month during talks
in Cairo with main Palestinian nationalist and Islamist
factions.
President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction has said it
accepted the plan to end armed attacks, but key militant groups
such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and an armed offshoot of Fatah
rejected it, demanding Israel cease killing Palestinians before
signing any deal to end armed attacks in the 28-month-old
revolt.
"We do not expect the Israeli government will stop its
escalation against our people even if the Palestinian factions
stopped their actions, but in that case the whole world will
see for itself who is responsible for escalating the conflict,"
Abu Mazen, secretary-general of the PLO's Executive Committee
told the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.
"Therefore the accusations will be directed at Israel
rather than the Palestinians," the newspaper quoted him as
saying. "This is why we (the Palestinian leadership) agreed to
freeze military activities for one year."
Abu Mazen, who has been cited as a potential successor to
Arafat, said he expected the Cairo talks would resume, possibly
next week, and hoped the proposal would eventually win the
backing of additional factions needed to make a truce hold.
Arafat also pledged last week to appoint a prime minister,
moving closer to a key demand by U.S. and European mediators to
the conflict for a reform of his Palestinian Authority, but
gave no candidate or starting date.
CLASH IN HEART OF NABLUS
In Nablus, Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of
Palestinians who threw stones at them in the city's Casbah,
killing two men, at least one of them a bystander, witnesses
and hospital officials said.
The army did not immediately comment on the killings, but
said soldiers had returned fire after a Palestinian youth threw
a petrol bomb at troops in the same area.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians vowed revenge on Friday
in a funeral procession of a leading Hamas military commander
who was killed by Israeli forces during recent raids in Gaza
which have overshadowed international peace efforts.
"(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon, prepare the
coffins," organizers yelled through loudspeakers. "Revenge is
coming soon, in Tel Aviv and Jaffa."
The army stepped up its raids into Gaza after a Hamas land
mine killed a four-man Israeli tank crew last week. Hamas has
also led a campaign of suicide bombings inside Israel since the
uprising erupted in September 2000.
At least 1,862 Palestinians and 705 Israelis have been
killed in the revolt which flared after U.S.-brokered peace
talks on a Palestinian state failed.
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