A Palestinian infiltrator shot and killed three Israeli students Tuesday at an Orthodox Jewish high school in the West Bank settlement of Itamar, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, settlers and rescue service officials said. The attacker was shot and killed, they said. The violence came amid repeated Israeli incursions into Palestinian towns in the West Bank.
Hezi Katoa, a rescue service worker, told Israel Radio that three students were killed and another wounded by gunfire.
"We found one wounded student who had been hit by a number of bullets in the chest. An army doctor pronounced him dead," he said. "We heard about two other students wounded in the school compound. When we got there, we found two of them lying behind the building with bullet wounds all over their bodies. All our efforts to revive them failed."
Settlers said the attacker entered the settlement and opened fire near the high school, where teen-agers study and live before entering the Israeli army. The rabbi who heads the school said the students came from all over the country.
The gunman sprayed gunfire indiscriminately, witnesses said. "(The gunman) fired at whoever he saw," Medic Avi Cohen said on Israel Radio.
JENIN MOVE
Earlier Tuesday, Israeli troops swept through more Palestinian cities arresting militants as part of a campaign of rolling raids that was intended to stem a new wave of suicide attacks in Israel.
A Palestinian man was killed during an Israeli move into the West Bank city of Jenin, where the army said it had captured Rami Awad, a leader of the militant Islamic movement Hamas and six other wanted Palestinians, before leaving at mid-day.
Another eight suspected militants were detained in assaults in other parts of the West Bank.
After nightfall, a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli civilian in an ambush on a West Bank road near the Jewish settlement of Ofra north of Jerusalem, the army said.
A day earlier a suicide bomber killed a baby and her grandmother at a cafe in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.
RESURGENCE OF SUICIDE ATTACKS
Suicide bombers have killed 22 people since Israel earlier this month declared an end to the crushing assault it dubbed Operation Defensive Shield and began mounting short raids into Palestinian cities.
"Without a doubt, Operation Defensive Shield hit the terrorist infrastructure hard, but it is clear motivation has risen as a result and more suicide bombers have been created," Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof told Channel One television.
In Beirut, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Arafat's Fatah faction, took responsibility for the Petah Tikva attack.
A video tape received by Reuters showed Jibril Titi, the 17-year-old cousin of a militant who was killed by Israeli forces last week, making preparations for a suicide bombing.
US President George Bush condemned the suicide attack - the fifth in Israel in a little more than a week.
POLICY FALLING SHORT
Deputy Israeli Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof admitted Tuesday that despite the arrest of thousands of suspected militants and the killing of dozens of wanted men, Operation Defensive Shield did not succeed in ending the militants' ability to stage attacks.
"We know now that there is nothing easier than to take a person bent on suicide and attach a bomb to him," she told Israel TV.
She denied that the Israeli military's frequent incursions into Palestinian territory are a precursor of another full-scale operation.
She said the defense establishment has a plan for a security fence between Israel and the West Bank and that "there should be a fence in the most sensitive parts (of the border) in a matter of weeks."
The border between Israel and the West Bank is largely open to infiltration, and to date Israel has avoided erecting physical obstacles for fear this might weaken its claim to at least some of the territory before a negotiated settlement. A fence would also leave many Jewish settlers on the other side from Israel. In a policy shift, US officials said Washington was debating whether to set a negotiating timetable for a Middle East peace settlement.
ARAFAT ENDORSES US-BACKED PLAN
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat called for a return to Middle East peace talks.
At his battle-scarred headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat said: "The Tenet understandings and the George Mitchell report should be implemented and we should come back to the negotiations with a sponsorship of the international community and the participation of the Arab sides."
He was referring to a plan to revive Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation produced by CIA director George Tenet last June and a truce-to-talks scheme devised by a commission led by former US Senator George Mitchell.
Peace talks collapsed in January 2001, just before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon swept to power and more than three months into a Palestinian revolt against occupation that has now cost the lives of at least 1,374 Palestinians and 483 Israelis.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters travelling with Bush in Rome: "We are not at this point prepared to table an American plan with specific deadlines."
But one official in Bush's party said the administration was consulting "friends and allies" on the idea.
"We're talking about how to chart the way forward and when we have something to say publicly we will. The idea is, at some point, to lay out how we move forward," the official said.
The Bush administration could offer a schedule for discussing the thorniest issues - borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees - along lines suggested by Arab leaders and others, another official said.
Israel and the Palestinians accuse each other of destroying the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords that were supposed to lead to a final settlement of their 54-year-old conflict.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday that Italy was offering to host exploratory Middle East peace talks in Sicily.
It was unclear whether the Italian leader, speaking to reporters at the end of a NATO-Russia summit near Rome, had mentioned the proposal to other leaders on Tuesday. Nor did he say whether the idea had been accepted.
In Rome, a US official said Washington was consulting with "friends and allies" on its next moves in trying to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
"We're talking about how to chart the way forward, and when we have something to say publicly, we will. The idea is, at some point, to lay out how we move the way forward to a political settlement."
Assistant Secretary of State William Burns was headed for the Middle East, and CIA director George Tenet was expected to follow later this week, possibly on Friday.
The State Department said Burns would begin his tour in Egypt and then hold talks with the Israelis and Palestinians before heading to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon.
"When we get reports back from Mr. Tenet and ambassador Burns, and when we consult with a lot of other people, we will start to integrate all this information and see what next steps should be taken, keeping in mind that we are committed to a meeting some time in the summer," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in Rome.
The United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations have backed an international conference on the Middle East, which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said must not take any decisions on core peace issues.
Powell said the threads of humanitarian relief, economic development, restructuring of the Palestinian Authority and the role of moderate Arabs would intertwine at that meeting.
"We will also look at political options to see what the two parties believe is possible at this time," Powell said.
(China Daily May 29, 2002)
