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Business News/ Politics / News/  Obama envoy heads to West Bank as violence flares
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Obama envoy heads to West Bank as violence flares

Obama envoy heads to West Bank as violence flares

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Jerusalem: President Barack Obama’s new Mideast envoy turned his attention to the Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank on Thursday, seeking to prop up a Gaza cease-fire and restart broader peace talks even as rockets thudded into southern Israel and Israeli warplanes attacked new targets.

George Mitchell held his first round of talks with regional leaders in Cairo and Jerusalem Wednesday to determine the next steps the Obama administration would take toward reviving peace negotiations following Israel’s blistering military offensive against Gaza’s Islamic Hamas rulers.

But a flare-up of Gaza violence underscored the more immediate priority -- shoring up the 10-day-old cease-fire. Palestinians fired rockets into Israel early Thursday, and the military said Israeli warplanes struck Gaza smuggling tunnels and a weapons factory. There were no reports of casualties.

Israel and Hamas separately declared a cease-fire on 18 January, ending a three-week Israeli offensive that killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians and caused widespread destruction in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting.

International diplomats have been trying to work out arrangements for a longer-range truce. Israel wants an end to Hamas rocket attacks and weapons smuggling. Hamas wants Israel to end a crippling economic blockade of Gaza’s borders, imposed after the Islamic militant group seized power in June 2007.

After talks in Jerusalem Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mitchell said consolidating the cease-fire was “of critical importance." He said a longer-term truce should be based on “an end to smuggling and reopening of the crossings" into Gaza.

Mitchell’s Mideast foray comes just a week after Obama took office, signaling the new US administration’s willingness to make the region a priority. Mitchell, a former US Senate majority leader and a broker of the 1998 Northern Ireland peace deal, said that after finishing his consultations in the region and with European leaders, he would report his recommendations to Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Mitchell was silent on the details of his meetings, and he has no news conferences planned during his seven-day tour.

In a meeting Wednesday night, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Mitchell that only a peace agreement which guaranteed Israeli security would win the approval of the Israeli public.

“In order for the peace negotiations to succeed, Israel must continue its war against terror wherever it exists and is directed against us," her office quoted her as saying.

Livni has been Israel’s chief negotiator in the past 15 months of peace talks with the moderate government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Those talks have been put on hold due to the fighting in Gaza, and Israel’s political campaign ahead of a 10 February parliamentary election.

Mitchell was scheduled to meet with Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, in the West Bank on Thursday. He is not meeting with Hamas, which the US, Israel and European Union have blacklisted as a terrorist group.

Abbas has not spoken to the Islamic militants since they took control of Gaza from his forces in 2007. But the recent Israeli offensive has fueled new calls for the rival Palestinian factions to reconcile. The Palestinians hope to establish an independent state in Gaza and the West Bank areas located on opposite sides of Israel.

It would be hard for the cease-fire to hold unless arrangements are made to stop the flow of arms to Hamas and end the blockade of the tiny coastal territory, which has deepened the deprivation there and trapped 1.4 million people inside.

Mitchell said the crossings should be opened on the basis of a 2005 agreement brokered by the US that put the main crossing, the passage between Egypt and Gaza, under the management of Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, with European monitors deployed to prevent smuggling.

However, Hamas wants a role at the crossings in recognition of its power in the territory. Israel and Abbas do not want Hamas there.

Olmert told Mitchell Wednesday that Hamas’ power in Gaza “must diminish" and Abbas must “gain a foothold" there, an Olmert aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because their meeting was closed.

Olmert said crossings between Israel and Gaza “will only open permanently" after the freeing of Sgt. Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier Gaza militants captured in June 2006, the aide said.

In Qatar on Wednesday, Hamas’ supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, said the group would not link the opening of crossings to the release of the Israeli soldier.

“We reject these Israeli conditions. We will not accept them," Mashaal said.

Hamas wants Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Schalit.

Egypt has been exploring the possibility of including some Hamas personnel in a Palestinian Authority presence at the border, but that would require some form of reconciliation between the factions, which remain bitter rivals. Egypt hopes to hold reconciliation talks between Hamas and Abbas by mid-February.

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Published: 29 Jan 2009, 02:19 PM IST
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