Peres, Ahead of U.S. Visit, Talks of Cease-Fire

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres gave a qualified “yes” Sunday to an Egyptian-Jordanian proposal for restarting talks with the Palestinians and then left for the U.S., where he hopes to convince President Bush that his government is using diplomacy, not just force, to quell violence in the Palestinian-controlled territories.

Before his departure, Peres--who is due to meet this week with Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice--also said Israel is working on a cease-fire to end seven months of fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Earlier, speaking to reporters in Cairo after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Peres said Israel would immediately ease restrictions on the Palestinians and try to improve the lives of ordinary people. He gave no specifics, but the Israelis have said they want to increase the number of Palestinians allowed to work inside Israel and reopen the Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip.

“We must pay attention to the situation and the mood of the Palestinian people in the territories,” Peres said. “We do not want them to suffer. We do not want them to pay a price for terror and violence.”

The Egyptian-Palestinian initiative calls for Israel to lift its blockade of Palestinian towns and villages while easing other measures the Palestinians consider collective punishment, and to freeze all building in Jewish settlements. It also calls for so-called final status talks to resume within six to 12 months.

But events on the ground illustrated how hard it will be to make a cease-fire stick, even if Israeli and Palestinian officials agree to one.

In Gaza on Sunday, Palestinians fired mortar shells into a Jewish settlement. According to Israeli media reports, that was in defiance of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s second order in 24 hours that such attacks be halted. Israeli security forces said two bombs aimed at Jewish targets went off in the West Bank and that a third was detonated by police in the coastal town of Netanya. A Palestinian thought to be a suicide car bomber was killed in one of the blasts; no one else was killed or injured.

Palestinians, meanwhile, said an 11-year-old boy was wounded in the Gazan town of Khan Yunis when Israeli tanks fired shells close to a refugee camp. Near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, farther north in Gaza, the Israelis fired tank shells at a Palestinian intelligence post, injuring two people. And a gun battle between Palestinians and Israeli troops erupted in the Gazan town of Beit Hanoun.

The fresh spasms of violence came a day after a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in Gaza wounded five teenagers, one of them seriously, and a 20-year-old Israeli sergeant was shot dead while waiting at a traffic light in northern Israel in what police said they believed was a terrorist attack.

With the fighting again threatening to spiral out of control, Mubarak caused a flurry of excitement when he announced after his meeting with Peres that “both parties, Palestinians and Israelis, have agreed to a cease-fire from both sides” and that “after the cease-fire [within] four weeks, negotiations will start and steps will be taken to find a solution to the situation we are in.”

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa later clarified at a news conference that the two sides were working on a cease-fire and had not reached an agreement.

In Israel, news that a cease-fire might be imminent brought a hail of criticism down on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from right-wing politicians and settlers, who accused him of breaking his promise not to negotiate with the Palestinians until they stop attacking Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Palestinian militants vowed to keep fighting no matter what Arafat might negotiate with the Israelis, unless Israel pulls its troops out of the West Bank and Gaza.

“Any agreement that does not lead to removal of the occupation does not have a chance to survive,” said Marwan Barghouti, a militia leader in Arafat’s Fatah faction in the West Bank. “The intifada’s goal is to end the occupation. Unless the occupation leaves, the intifada will continue.”

Barghouti dismissed Arafat’s call, issued during a meeting with his security council Saturday, to disband the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, which have been directing many of the mortar attacks on Israeli targets. The committees are dominated by members of Fatah, many of whom are also members of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.

“These committees are the result of the intifada, and nobody can dismantle them,” Barghouti said.

Given the ongoing violence and harsh rhetoric, Israeli analysts were pessimistic that Peres’ latest diplomatic moves will yield results.

“On the eve of Shimon Peres’ departure for a diplomatic mission that might have raised a feeble hope or two, once again appears the Palestinian on duty, with a bomb, signaling that maybe it’s a waste of time,” wrote Hemi Shalev, political analyst for the Israeli daily Maariv. “The gaps between the sides are enormous, and the attack after which there won’t be any point in talking can happen at any moment.” The daily Haaretz opined that Sharon’s qualified approval of the Jordanian-Egyptian peace initiative would be rejected by the Palestinians.

On Sunday, Peres told Mubarak, as well as Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Aqaba, that Israel will build no new settlements but will continue to expand existing ones to accommodate “natural growth.” Egypt’s Moussa said this was a “major point” of difference between the Arabs and Israel.

Peres said Israel is unwilling to set a specific date for a return to negotiations. Sharon has said he will not engage in final status talks, but only in talks on long-term interim arrangements.

Speaking on Voice of Palestine radio, Palestinian Cultural Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo said that the Israelis cannot “pick and choose” from the Egyptian-Jordanian proposal but must accept it as a package.

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Times staff writer Michael Slackman in Cairo contributed to this report.