Mideast Fighting Grows as Truce Deal Withers

What was supposed to be the day a truce took hold brought some of the bloodiest fighting in two weeks to the West Bank, with Israeli troops Friday shooting to death nine Palestinians and wounding dozens.

The intensifying violence came on the eve of today’s crucial Arab summit in Cairo, where Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat hopes to win support from Arab governments after more than three weeks of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said his nation “will take time out to reevaluate the peace process” if the unrest continues after the summit ends Sunday. Israeli officials have repeatedly charged that Arafat is allowing violence to continue as a means of encouraging the Arab leaders to take a strong stand against Israel.

There were signs that those leaders will resist public opinion in Arab nations, where there have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations and calls to break diplomatic ties or even go to war with Israel.

Osama Baz, political advisor to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, told reporters last week that the Arab leaders “believe that slipping into a state of war will not serve any purpose. The Arab summit will convene to save peace.”

But there seems precious little peace to save.

By Friday evening, the cease-fire brokered three days earlier with President Clinton’s help at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik had collapsed. Each side blamed the other for the deterioration, with the Palestinians accusing Israel of continuing to besiege their communities and kill people, and Israel accusing the Palestinians of wantonly shooting at its soldiers and settlers.

Nearly 120 people, nearly all of them Palestinians, have been killed in the past three weeks. Thousands have been wounded.

Both sides said they feel that the dynamics on the ground are shifting as hope of restarting the negotiations fades and any semblance of trust between the two sides evaporates.

Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed-Rabbo told a Palestinian Television interviewer in an interview rebroadcast on state-run Israel Television: “This is the war of independence.”

In a tacit acknowledgment that Arafat might not completely control the streets, Israeli officials said Tuesday that they could not expect him to turn off the violence immediately. Instead, they gave the Palestinian Authority until 4 p.m. Friday to put a cease-fire in place.

But as that hour passed, Israeli troops and armed Palestinian militias were blasting away at one another in cities and towns across the West Bank.

Although the Israeli army continued to insist that it was acting with restraint, witnesses reported soldiers responding with massive fire to attacks that a few days ago would have drawn a more controlled response.

The worst clash was in Nablus, a strongly nationalist Palestinian city in the northern West Bank. An Israeli patrol on the outskirts of the city, in an area where Israel is responsible for security, came under fire from members of a Palestinian militia and fired back, according to army spokesman Yarden Vatikai. Palestinian sources said the troops opened fire indiscriminately, killing four Palestinians and wounding 20.

Clashes also broke out in the city of Ramallah, where dozens of demonstrators threw rocks at Israeli troops from behind burned-out cars. A 17-year-old Palestinian was shot in the head and killed.

The Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo came under fire from the Palestinian towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahur. The Israelis called in helicopter gunships and fired tank-mounted machine guns, and a mortar shell hit near one town.

A 15-year-old Palestinian boy reportedly was shot dead in a clash with troops in the northern West Bank town of Salfit. A 20-year-old was shot to death in Al Birah, and another Palestinian was killed in Kalqilya. A 16-year-old was killed in Tulkarm.

On the outskirts of Tulkarm, an Israeli bus filled with soldiers took a wrong turn and ended up at a Palestinian checkpoint. According to the army, when the civilian bus driver realized he was inside Palestinian-controlled territory, he tried to turn around and flee.

Palestinian police stopped the bus, boarded it and forced an officer to lie on the floor. The police collected the soldiers’ guns, said spokesman Vatikai. The driver then began to pull away, and police and militiamen opened fire, wounding seven soldiers.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured in clashes with soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

“What kind of a truce is this?” asked Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, chief of Israel’s Central Command, which includes the West Bank. “This is not a power which wants to do agreements with us.

“How can we trust them?” the visibly agitated general asked in a conversation with reporters. “They do nothing to implement the cease-fire. They just do nothing.”

An Israeli military source, who requested anonymity, said: “The Palestinians are becoming more and more firm in their intent to fight us as an enemy, and their goals are much more straightforward. Their goal is independence, and to achieve it by driving Israel out of the West Bank.”

Equally angry Palestinian officials accused Israel of violating the Sharm el Sheik agreement and waging war on the Palestinians.

“President Clinton must come personally to say who is violating his terms of reference,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on CNN. “We need international protection to come to the entrances of our towns, villages and refugee camps.”

At the United Nations, the General Assembly voted, 92-6, with dozens of abstentions, in an emergency session Friday to again condemn Israel for “excessive use of force” against Palestinian civilians.

The U.S. and Israel tried to persuade the 189-member body that the nonbinding resolution would endanger the truce reached Tuesday and fuel anti-Israel passions at this weekend’s Arab summit in Cairo.

As the comprehensive peace Barak promised voters last year slipped from his grasp, polls published in Israel on Friday showed how tenuous is his grip on power. Barak’s coalition has lost its majority, and he faces the possibility of losing power when parliament reconvenes later this month.

A poll of 505 people by the Dahaf Institute for the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv showed that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would receive 50% of the respondents’ votes if elections were held now, while Barak would receive only 38%.

In an interview broadcast Friday night on Israel Television, however, Barak appeared confident and almost cheerful as he discussed his threat to call a timeout in the peace process.

“Timeout is not a slogan,” he said. “This is what is needed. We cannot go on with the peace process as if nothing has happened.”

Barak continues to court Ariel Sharon, trying to convince the leader of the right-wing Likud Party to join a government of national emergency that would give the prime minister a majority government. Palestinians say the current uprising was triggered by Sharon’s Sept. 28 visit to a holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City that Muslims call Haram al Sharif and Jews the Temple Mount.

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Times staff writers Mark Fineman in Cairo, Robert A. Rosenblatt in Jefferson City, Mo., and Maggie Farley at the U.N. contributed to this report.