Israeli Officials, Arafat Meet in Bid to Restart Peace Talks

Senior Israeli officials met Thursday with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in the highest-level contact in weeks, even as militants accused Israel of waging an assassination campaign against them.

Israel Television said Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Gilead Sher, a senior aide to caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak, were aiming to restart peace negotiations that collapsed when violence between Israelis and Palestinians erupted in late September. The meeting, at the Erez checkpoint that divides Israel from the Gaza Strip, ended early today with no word of an agreement.

Barak has said he wants to conclude a framework for a final peace agreement with the Palestinians before Israeli elections are held in February, then turn those elections into a referendum on peace. Israel Television said he may meet with Arafat if Thursday’s meeting makes progress.

Barak and Arafat met briefly at a summit in Egypt in October. In recent weeks, Barak has wondered publicly whether Arafat is still a partner for peace, and Arafat has said the Israeli leader could “go to hell.”

Arafat met with U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis B. Ross in Morocco on Tuesday. The Palestinian leader told reporters in Gaza City on Thursday that Ross had delivered a message from President Clinton, saying Clinton is determined to make a final effort to achieve peace before he leaves office in January.

News of the new Israeli-Palestinian meeting came on a day marked by continuing bloodshed. At a Gaza Strip checkpoint, Israeli troops shot and killed a taxi driver who, Palestinians said, was active in the militant Hamas Islamic movement. An Israeli settler in the West Bank was seriously injured in a drive-by shooting near the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Taxi driver Hani abu Bakra was the seventh Palestinian fighter killed by Israeli soldiers in the past month.

“We will target everyone who plans and perpetrates attacks against Israel and Israelis,” said army spokesman Maj. Yarden Vatikay.

He refused to say whether the army has a most-wanted list, but some of those targeted have been militants released after the latest wave of Israeli-Palestinian bloodletting began. The Palestinian Authority opened its jails and released Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, some of whom were believed to have carried out bombing attacks on civilians inside Israel in the past.

Abu Bakra spent two years in a Palestinian Authority jail as a member of Hamas’ military wing, the Izzidin al-Qassam brigades. The Israeli army said he had been released from jail recently and was planning to carry out a bombing attack inside Israel. It said Abu Bakra, who was ferrying passengers from the southern Gaza town of Rafah to Gaza City, was stopped at a checkpoint and shot when he pulled a handgun on troops.

Palestinians said Abu Bakra was killed in a hail of gunfire after he was stopped at the checkpoint near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom. At least three Palestinian passengers in the taxi were wounded in the shooting, two of them seriously.

Kfar Darom and other Jewish settlements in Gaza have been targeted by Palestinian gunmen. Settlers have been killed or wounded in shootings and have been the targets of roadside bombs.

“Hamas is aware of the ways the enemy is using to assassinate our fighters,” Ismail abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in Gaza, told The Times. “Of course, this is an open fight, and we expect to pay a price, but we think, God willing, that the enemy will also pay a price.”

The fighters are extremely popular on the Palestinian streets, where demands for revenge are strong after 11 weeks of fighting in which more than 300 people, most of them Palestinians, have died.

Israel said 10,000 Palestinian workers from Gaza and the West Bank will be allowed to return to their jobs inside Israel today. Another 20,000 will be allowed back to work soon if the violence ebbs, Israel Radio reported. More than 50,000 workers have been banned from crossing into Israel for more than two months.

About 1,000 Muslims from the West Bank and Gaza Strip were to be allowed to worship at Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City today for the first time during the holy month of Ramadan, which is about half over.

The army’s campaign has generated little interest among Israelis. Most are simply eager for the government and the army to find some way to end the Palestinian attacks.

“Unfortunately, as an Israeli, I am ashamed to say that the question is not raised” of whether targeted attacks are legal under international law, said Eitan Felner, director of B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. B’Tselem recently issued a report faulting the army for using what it said was excessive force to quell Palestinian riots and demonstrations.

Felner said the organization is collecting information on each case of targeted shooting of militants and studying whether the attacks can be considered self-defense in a time of violent conflict.

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Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.