PALESTINE: Three Palestinians were killed in Gaza, a Palestinian was shot dead as he tried to infiltrate a West Bank settlement, and an American peace activist was badly injured in Jenin, in a weekend of continuing Israeli-Palestinian confrontation.Three Palestinians were killed in Gaza, a Palestinian was shot dead as he tried to infiltrate a West Bank settlement, and an American peace activist was badly injured in Jenin, in a weekend of continuing Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, writes David Horovitz in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is dispatching a senior aide to Washington this week, to try and persuade the Bush administration to amend the joint American/European/UN peace "roadmap," designed to pave the way to Palestinian statehood. Mr Dov Weisglass, head of the prime minister's office, said he was confident the Americans would be receptive to Israeli calls for the Palestinian Authority to put an end to suicide bombings and other attacks as a precondition for diplomatic progress.
Insisting that Israel sought only to hold the Americans to the "security conditions" laid out by President Bush in a speech last June, Mr Weisglass told Israel Radio: "On this there will be no compromise even if, God forbid, the price is . . . getting up politely from the table and going home."
The US has said it welcomes Israeli and Palestinian comment on the "road map" which it intends to formally present soon. After that, it has said, it would not be amended, just implemented. It is urging Israel to help Mr Abu Mazen, the incoming Palestinian prime minister, make a success of his new role, which Mr Weisglass promised Israel would try to do.
Yesterday's violence saw two Palestinians killed in exchanges of gunfire with the Israeli army outside Dir al-Balah in Gaza, and a Palestinian boy - eight-years-old, according to some reports - was killed when troops fired on stone-throwers in Gaza's El-Marazi refugee camp.
On Saturday, a Palestinian gunman was shot dead after opening fire and injuring one Israeli at the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.
An American from the International Solidarity Movement was in serious condition in an Israeli hospital, having been hit in the face by gunfire in Jenin.
Colleagues said the gunfire came from an Israeli armoured personnel carrier; the Israeli army said he was caught up in Israeli-Palestinian crossfire.
In Tel Aviv, Mr Marwan Barghouti, head of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in the West Bank, refused yesterday to mount a defence at the start of his trial for murder, declaring that Israel had no jurisdiction over him.