Attacks May End Policy of Restraint, Israel Warns

Israel must review its policy of restraint following repeated attacks by Palestinians, Cabinet ministers said Tuesday, reflecting Israeli exasperation with a shaky 6-day-old cease-fire.

Five mortar shells landed near the Gush Katif cluster of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the military said. No one was hurt in the attack, which came one day after two Israeli motorists were killed in the West Bank.

“There should be no doubt that if the Palestinians don’t act to prevent terror attacks, we will reconsider the situation and the actions Israel will take to protect its citizens,” Cabinet Minister Danny Naveh told Israel Radio.

Last week, Israelis and Palestinians grudgingly accepted a truce negotiated by CIA Director George J. Tenet that called for an end to violence by both sides, confiscation of illegal weapons--including mortars and explosives--and an easing of Israeli restrictions in the West Bank and Gaza.

Because of the ongoing violence, a six-week “cooling-off” period that was supposed to lead to peace talks will not begin today as planned, Israeli officials said.

Instead, Israel reimposed a blockade around the West Bank town of Tulkarm, near the site of one of two attacks Monday on Israeli motorists. One Israeli was killed and another slightly injured when Palestinian gunmen fired at their car. Another was killed when a Palestinian fired shots at several cars in the West Bank after nightfall.

Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, chief of Israeli military intelligence, briefed the parliament’s security committee on the latest round of violence Tuesday and “concluded that there is no cease-fire,” said parliament Speaker Avraham Burg, who is in Washington.

Burg interrupted his speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy after he was handed a note, apparently providing details about Malka’s testimony.

Some Palestinians have said openly that the cease-fire does not apply to Jewish settlers--at least 27 have been killed in ambushes and drive-by shootings since the fighting erupted Sept. 28.

“We said from the beginning that there is no cease-fire for the settlers,” Ziad abu Ain, a leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank, told Israel Radio. Fatah took responsibility for Monday’s killings.

In Madrid, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat blamed the settlers for the violence, but added, “I promise, personally, and in the name of the Palestinian people, that we will do everything we can to be able to control the situation on our part with all the measures and tools at our disposal.”

In the Gaza Strip, hundreds of mourners buried a 16-year-old Palestinian youth Tuesday who died of gunshot wounds after an earlier clash with Israeli forces. A masked man representing Hamas said the militant Islamic group will “kill the Zionist occupiers, soldiers and settlers by all means.”

Hamas has claimed responsibility for a June 1 suicide bombing outside a nightclub in Tel Aviv. A 15-year-old Israeli girl who was injured in the bombing died of her wounds Tuesday, bringing the total number of Israelis killed in the attack to 21.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Eli Ishai criticized Palestinian statements that the cease-fire applies only in areas under full Palestinian control. “We need to hold a deep discussion to change the policy of restraint,” he said.