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Israel cuts some contacts, begins W.Bank clampdown

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 06:41 CDT

By Matt Spetalnick

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel suspended all security contacts with the Palestinians and began sealing off biblical Bethlehem in a West Bank clampdown on Monday after gunmen killed three settlers in the deadliest attack on Israelis in months.

The flare-up on Sunday in the occupied West Bank, including Israel's killing of a senior Islamic militant, came a month after the Jewish state completed its pullout from the Gaza Strip to end 38 years of military rule.

The latest fighting raised new doubts about an already shaky eight-month-old ceasefire and undermined hopes the Gaza pullout would spur renewed peacemaking.

Despite that, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned to go ahead with talks with U.S. President George W. Bush this week on how to resuscitate a "road map" peace plan, an aide said.

Demanding a Palestinian crackdown on militants, Israel said it was suspending all security contacts with the Palestinian Authority, which had been expanded in recent months with coordination of the pullout from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel told the Palestinian Authority the freeze applied to diplomatic contacts as well. Israel's Foreign Ministry denied this.

Israeli forces erected roadblocks at entrances to the West Bank town of Bethlehem, an area under Palestinian security control from which Sunday's attackers were thought to have come.

Troops also closed the main entrance to the neighboring West Bank city of Hebron and imposed closures near Ramallah.

Rolling back an easing of restrictions gradually implemented since a February ceasefire took effect, Palestinian cars were banned from certain roads in the West Bank.

The army also arrested 19 suspected militants in raids in the territory, where troops have kept most major towns and cities encircled during a five-year-old Palestinian uprising.

"As a result of yesterday's attacks we are taking defensive action on the ground to prevent future occurrences," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "There is also a temporary suspension of contacts between the Defense Ministry and military personnel and Palestinian counterparts."

Erekat said the clampdown would only make matters worse. "It is very unfortunate because we should not allow such incidents to deter and undermine the peace process," he told Reuters.

SHIFTING FOCUS

Analysts had predicted militants would shift focus to the West Bank following Israel's removal of all 8,500 settlers from Gaza. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed never to cede major settlement blocs in the West Bank, where 245,000 settlers live.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group in Abbas' ruling Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the shootings outside the Gush Etzion settlement bloc and Eli settlement, saying it was avenging Israel's killing of militants.

Three settlers died in the Gush Etzion attack, and two were wounded in the second ambush.

In northern West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead an Islamic Jihad militant commander after he opened fire on them, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli military sources said.

The ambushes could embarrass Abbas just before his talks with Bush at the White House on Thursday. Abbas has been under U.S. and Israeli pressure to rein in and disarm militants.

Sunday's attack was the deadliest for Israelis since July, when a suicide bomber killed five people in an Israeli town.

It was the worst single day of violence since August 24 when five Palestinians were killed in a West Bank raid by Israeli troops and a British Jew was stabbed to death by a Palestinian.

Palestinian officials denounced Sunday's roadside shootings but also condemned the killing of the militant leader.

Militants entered into a truce earlier this year at Abbas's behest. The deal has greatly reduced but not halted violence.

Palestinians want Gaza and the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, for a future state.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem, Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Saed Ayyad in Bethlehem)

Source: REUTERS

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