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Palestinian Gunmen Kill Israeli Girl

Posted on: Wednesday, 18 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas failed on Tuesday to persuade militant groups to end attacks on Israelis. Just after their meeting, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a car and killed a 7-year-old Israeli girl.

The girl's 5-year-old sister was seriously wounded in the shooting on a highway just inside Israel, close to the West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

Israeli government official Zalman Shoval said the shooting showed that alongside peace efforts, "our own battle with the terrorists will have to continue."

Violent Palestinian groups have so far refused to halt attacks, despite tremendous Palestinian, Egyptian, and international pressure backed up by the prospect of a serious Israeli campaign to wipe the militants out. A deal would apparently require Israel to commit to ending killings of militant leaders.

As part of a cease-fire package, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas offered the militant Hamas a political role in his government, a participant in the Tuesday talks said, but no agreement was reached.

Such an agreement could also reportedly include the release of uprising leader Marwan Barghouti - a Fatah leader perhaps second only to Arafat in popularity among the Palestinians. But some Israeli officials dismissed that as a possibility.

In Tuesday's shooting, the military said gunmen used a water culvert to get around a wall between the West Bank and a main north-south highway. They opened fire on a car carrying a family of eight, then escaped back into the town, the army said.

A 7-year-old girl, Noam Leibowitz, was killed, her 5-year-old sister seriously wounded. Two other family members, a child and grandfather, were slightly wounded, the military and rescue workers said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The military imposed a curfew on Qalqiliya and searched for the gunmen.

Abbas' three-hour meeting with leaders of militant groups produced no truce accord, but there was agreement to continue the talks. Ismail Abu Shanab of Hamas said Hamas leaders "are still discussing this subject within the movement and have not yet made a final decision."

He said Abbas also suggested a broad Palestinian leadership including the militant movements.

Israel TV reported Tuesday that Israel would accept a cease-fire of three to six weeks. Israel officials were not available comment. Israeli officials have been warning that a brief cease-fire would only allow the militant groups to rearm and plan further attacks.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader, said the group was only considering an end to attacks on Israeli civilians inside Israel, and would keep targeting soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.

The militants also demand that Israel stop other military strikes, release prisoners and withdraw to positions held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000.

Israel has said it would continue its offensive against Hamas and has reacted with suspicion to Abbas' idea of a long-term cease-fire.

Israeli officials are demanding Abbas crack down on the groups. Abbas has said he will not use force against the militants for fear of triggering civil war.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was to travel to Israel on Friday. Speaking en route to Cambodia, he lent support to Israel's demand for a crackdown.

Ultimately, Hamas and other terrorist organizations "will not only have to stop these terrorist attacks. We have to eliminate their capability to do so," he said. "We have to come down hard on organizations such as Hamas."

Abbas' meeting with leaders of all the Palestinian militant factions Tuesday was part of an international push for an agreement to end the violence. In recent days, Egyptian mediators traveled to Gaza to try to persuade the militants to lay down their arms.

As part of the road map, which envisions creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, Israel must take down settlement outposts in the West Bank and halt attacks "undermining trust" with the Palestinians. But violence has persisted.

John Wolf, a U.S. envoy sent in with a team of monitors to supervise the road map's implementation, met Tuesday with Abbas.

Israeli officials said they offered to withdraw their forces from most of the Gaza Strip and at least one West Bank town control. But a senior Palestinian security source said Israel's withdrawal plan consisted of nothing more than moving a few tanks out of the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

Earlier Tuesday, Arafat told Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, that Israel would release Barghouti in the next two days, she said.

Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein wrote that it would be "inconceivable" to free Barghouti, whom he called a "first-rate architect of terrorism," before the end of his trial. Israel's foreign minister denied that Barghouti's release was being considered.

Violence continued Tuesday, with clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the Balata and Askar refugee camps in the West Bank. A 14-year-old Palestinian was shot in the leg with live bullets in Balata, and an Associated Press photographer was lightly injured by rubber bullets.

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