Barak, Palestinians Dodge Confrontation Over Attack on Israelis

Israel and the Palestinians, intent on restarting the long-stalled Mideast peace process, appeared to take pains Tuesday to avoid confrontation after a Palestinian attack at a busy bus stop left 11 Israeli soldiers injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and other officials of his month-old government condemned the early-morning attack 25 miles west of Jerusalem, in which a young Palestinian twice rammed his car into the group of soldiers. He was then shot to death by Israeli police and military forces.

Barak called the driver’s assault “cowardly.” But in a marked departure from the tone taken by his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, after similar incidents, Barak and his Cabinet ministers did not level accusations against the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Yasser Arafat, for failing to prevent the attack.

Instead, they stressed Israel’s intention to forge ahead with the peace process and strengthen security cooperation with the Palestinians.

“The executor of this terror attack is a criminal with extremist motives,” Barak told reporters Tuesday. “His action will just strengthen our determination to do whatever it will take to put an end to terror, and to do it in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.”

Palestinian officials, in turn, said they were investigating Tuesday’s incident but offered relatively mild criticism of Israeli forces for shooting the assailant, later identified as Akram Alkam, 22, from the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

“The Israelis acted too quickly,” said a senior Palestinian official who declined to be identified. “Acts of violence, on either side, do not help build the trust.”

Leaders of the opposition Likud Party criticized the government’s reaction and said the lack of a “firm” response could lead to more attacks.

Late Tuesday, an Israeli army spokeswoman reported that an Israeli civilian was moderately hurt when gunmen fired on his car near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Mevo Dotan. The army was investigating the incident.

The first assault occurred at a major intersection just before 8 a.m. Alkam struck two soldiers initially, then sped away. Ten minutes later, pursued by a police helicopter, he returned and plowed into the group trying to help the injured, said Lt. Col. Sharon Grinker, an army spokesman.

One woman was seriously hurt and underwent surgery, Grinker said. Most of the rest were treated and released by midday.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Alkam’s mother, Fadwa, said her son called on a mobile phone early Tuesday and told her that he planned to carry out a “suicide attack.” She tried to talk him out of it, but he would not be dissuaded, the wire service reported.

But Jamil Alkam, the assailant’s uncle, later denied that the family had any knowledge that Alkam planned an attack and described the incident as a “traffic accident.” He said his nephew had no connection with Hamas, a militant Islamic group that has carried out many deadly attacks against Israelis and last Saturday threatened a new wave of violence.

Palestinian police sources in Bethlehem said Alkam, who is from a large, relatively prosperous family, was released from prison six months ago after serving time on a car theft conviction. They too said he had no known ties to extremist groups.

Since he took office last month, Barak has been trying to persuade the Palestinians to delay implementation of part of the Wye Plantation land-for-security agreement negotiated last fall, and to include some of its provisions in new talks on a permanent peace deal. Arafat has agreed to some, but not all, of Barak’s suggestions, and a third summit between them could be held as early as next week.

If the meeting is held, though, Barak could face Palestinian anger over a separate action Tuesday, when his government sent police to Jerusalem’s most sensitive site, the broad plaza known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram al Sharif, or noble sanctuary.

The Israelis sealed a window that Muslim religious authorities had recently widened in one of the compound’s ancient walls, near sites holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians. Changes in the carefully guarded area have often sparked conflict, including riots in 1996 that killed at least 75 people and wounded dozens of others.

The government’s action was widely seen here as an early signal by Barak that he, like Netanyahu, will stand firm on the issue of preserving Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, the eastern part of which was captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy places, as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Barak said the government decided to close the window because its enlargement constituted an “unlawful, unilateral step” by the Islamic trust that has authority over the mosques in the area.

But Sheik Ikrama Sabri, the Palestinian mufti of Jerusalem, said the window was widened, in the course of other recent renovations, to provide better ventilation for worshipers. Israel’s action was unjustified, he said.

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Maher Abu Khater of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.