Barak Extends Deadline, Says He Is Open to Summit

Saying he wanted to give intense new diplomatic efforts a chance, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak today extended a deadline he had imposed for a halt to Palestinian violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Government spokesman Nachman Shai said Barak was willing to attend a U.S.-hosted Middle East summit, if one is held. President Clinton has been trying for days to win agreement from Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to attend a summit, but so far none has been announced.

“We will act to restore calm to the extent that it depends on us, while also giving Yasser Arafat a certain additional time to do what he needs to do,” Shai said after Barak held an emergency session with his Cabinet that ended early in the morning. “There is intense diplomatic activity which we cannot reject or ignore.”

It was not immediately clear how much more time Barak was giving Arafat, but it appeared to be at least several more days. In a statement issued at the end of the meeting, the Cabinet said a closure the army imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the Yom Kippur holiday would remain in force indefinitely. It said Israel also would keep the Palestinian airport in Gaza closed indefinitely, allowing only Arafat to fly in and out.

Just two days earlier, Barak issued an ultimatum to Arafat after Palestinians destroyed a Jewish shrine in the West Bank town of Nablus. Stop the rioting that broke out Sept. 28, he said, or face an end to peace negotiations. Palestinian officials rejected the deadline, accusing Israel of using excessive force in putting down demonstrations in which an estimated 2,000 Palestinians have been injured.

Pressure had been mounting inside Israel for Barak to forcefully quell the riots that have so far claimed more than 85 lives, most of them Palestinian. After the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur ended Monday night, protesters in dozens of Jewish towns called on Barak to act against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs who have demonstrated in support of the Palestinians. They also demanded the quick release of three Israeli soldiers captured Saturday by Lebanese Shiite Muslim guerrillas as the soldiers patrolled near Israel’s northern border.

“The Palestinian leadership is not ready for peace,” Barak had told reporters before the Cabinet session, billed as an assessment of Israel’s military options, got underway late Monday. “This obliges us to take actions and reactions.”

Hoping to calm tensions and avoid a regional conflict, three envoys flew separately into Tel Aviv on Monday. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived after dispatching special representative Rolf Knutsson to Beirut to meet with Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah about releasing the Israeli soldiers Hezbollah says it is holding. Hezbollah has said it wants to trade the soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners that Israel is holding.

Knutsson said after the meeting that he was “optimistic” that a solution could be found quickly. Knutsson also met with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, urging him to send more troops to southern Lebanon. Israel has massed troops on its border with Lebanon and warned that it holds the Lebanese and Syrian governments responsible for the safe return of the three soldiers.

Clinton spent most of the Columbus Day holiday on the telephone with leaders throughout the Middle East.

Annan met with Israel’s acting foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, then traveled to Gaza for talks with Arafat. The secretary-general was due to meet Barak later today. Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov arrived after talks in Syria and Lebanon, and European envoy Javier Solana also was scheduled to meet Barak today.

All three envoys hoped to persuade the Israelis and the Palestinians to take steps that would ease tensions on the ground and bring them back to the negotiating table.

But the Israelis said they were primarily interested in enlisting help to win the release of their soldiers, not in bringing the United Nations, the Europeans or the Russians into their standoff with the Palestinians.

Israel’s army said analysis of blood found where the soldiers were captured Saturday showed that they had been wounded, and it said it wants proof that the men are still alive.

After their meeting, Annan and Ben-Ami sounded pessimistic about the prospects for avoiding an escalation in the West Bank and Gaza.

“I have not come with any magic formula or solution,” Annan told reporters.

“There are no signs in the field that there is a halt in the violence on the Palestinian side. Therefore, I don’t see any room at the moment for a change in the Israeli position,” Ben-Ami said.

Later, after meeting with Arafat, Annan told reporters that “we have to work to make it possible to come back to the negotiating table. The bloodshed must be stopped, and we should not allow the confrontation to spread. The time is short, and there is a lot to do.”

Arafat said that they had “discussed the situation from all sides” and would continue talks today.

Although there were confrontations between Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators in Ramallah and Nablus in the West Bank, there were no large-scale clashes in Gaza.

Overall, the demonstrations were smaller and less widespread than they had been since riots first broke out Sept. 28, after right-wing Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit to a site holy to Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem’s Old City. Muslims viewed Sharon’s visit to Haram al Sharif, the compound Jews call the Temple Mount, as a desecration.

The Israeli military commander in the Gaza Strip, Maj. Gen. Yom-Tov Samia, said Palestinian police kept demonstrators away from one of the worst flash points, the Netzarim junction. The army outpost there, guarding an Israeli-controlled road to the tiny Jewish settlement of Netzarim, has come under repeated attack by huge Palestinian mobs.

After nightfall, the army reported that Jewish enclaves in the West Bank city of Hebron had come under fire, that shots had been fired at the West Bank settlement of Efrat and that there were shooting incidents elsewhere in the West Bank.

Marwan Barghouti, a leader of Arafat’s Fatah organization’s militia, said that Arafat had ordered his security organizations to hold their fire. Although what Barghouti called the “popular work” of marches, demonstrations and rock-throwing will continue, he said, Arafat does not want the security forces to be involved in gun battles with Israeli troops. Barghouti was vague about whether that meant that the militia he controls also would stop shooting.

What seemed clear is that the waves of violence have unleashed deep hatred on both sides.

As Jewish settlers mourned the killing of an American-born rabbi, Hillel Lieberman, who was found beaten and shot to death near Nablus on Sunday, Palestinians from the tiny West Bank village of Umm Safa said they were sure that one of their neighbors, Assam Judeh, a 34-year-old house painter, had been tortured and killed by Jewish settlers.

Judeh’s body was found Monday morning along the side of the road that goes from the village to the Jewish settlement of Halamish. Israel’s army said that he was the victim of a car accident. Villagers said he was last seen speeding away from an Israeli army patrol on Sunday. Judeh’s skull had multiple fractures, his left arm was broken, bruises covered his body, and doctors said his eyes appeared to have been burned. Uniformly shaped circular burns were visible in several places on his arms and legs.

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DIPLOMATIC DEAD END?

After coming tantalizingly close to brokering a peace deal, the U.S. may be stymied. A6