While Israel and the Palestinians have incessantly blamed each other for the ongoing Middle East violence, a commission set up to investigate the hostilities yesterday presented a draft report to both sides. It was said to focus more on recommendations for heading off future conflict than on apportioning blame for the present fighting.
Palestinian officials said that the report of the Mitchell Commission, headed by the former US senator and Northern Ireland peace negotiator, Mr George Mitchell, criticised Israel for continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But, they conceded, it did not back a demand by Palestinian leaders for an international force for the region to protect their people.
The daily Ha'aretz newspaper reported that the commission was likely to criticise Israel for using excessive force in attempting to squash the Palestinian uprising, but that it would also criticise the Palestinians for resorting to violence and terror.
Both sides are to relay their remarks on the report to President Bush who will then decide when to publish it. The commission was established last October and was one of the central planks in a US-sponsored ceasefire effort.
Stressing that the report included a demand for Israeli settlement activity to cease, the Palestinian Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abd Rabbo, said: "Others may quickly jump to conclusions based on what is not in the report. But we believe that what is in the report is of great importance."
Israel army Radio quoted the report as saying that the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon's visit to a Jerusalem religious site holy to both Jews and Muslims in September last year was a factor in the outbreak of the fighting, but not the only one.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders yesterday scoffed at what appeared to be an increasingly desperate effort by Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, to breathe new life into the moribund peace process. "I do not know what progress Mr Peres is talking about," the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Mr Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), said.
Mr Qureia was responding to remarks by Mr Peres after a Thursday meeting in Washington with Mr Bush.
On the ground, the fighting continued yesterday, with Israel firing four tank shells at Palestinian police positions in Gaza after two mortar shells were fired from the Strip at a community inside Israel proper.
