Israel ends Gaza raid but peace meet still in doubt
Reuters, Rafah, Gaza Strip
Palestinian officials said an Israeli raid in which nine people were killed in the Gaza Strip had put in doubt talks to prepare for a vital peace summit even as Israel's army rolled back on Wednesday. Meetings in Jerusalem between Israeli and Palestinian officials had been due on Wednesday to arrange a long-awaited encounter between Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurie. But Palestinian sources said that was now in doubt. "The meeting scheduled for today will probably be canceled to protest Israel's raid on Rafah," an official in Qurie's office told Reuters. Israeli tanks and bulldozers trundled out of Rafah after some the fiercest clashes for two months, in which nine Palestinians were killed, dozens wounded and scores left homeless. The army said it had been hunting for tunnels used to smuggle arms from Egypt. The militant group Hamas said it fired four homemade rockets across Gaza's boundary with Israel overnight. No one was hurt. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a Gaza ambush on Monday. The violence again highlighted the failure of either side to make progress on the US-backed "road map" peace deal that is meant to lead to a Palestinian state by 2005. It has been bogged down by violence and the failure of either side to meet pledges. Israeli sources could not confirm if there would be a meeting with Palestinian officials, but said Egypt might offer to host a summit of the prime ministers that is widely seen as crucial for getting negotiations on track. There was no immediate comment from Cairo, which has tried to coax a truce from militants sworn to Israel's destruction. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher won tacit Israeli approval for the efforts during a visit to Jerusalem this week. Israel said it would ease a military blockade imposed in the West Bank against a three-year-old Palestinian uprising to allow pilgrims to reach Bethlehem for Christmas eve. Palestinians call the checkpoints and closures collective punishment. In Rafah, home to thousands of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war of the Jewish state's creation, dozens of families found themselves dispossessed once more by Israeli bulldozers that reduced rows of shanties to rubble in the 24-hour raid.
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