Sharon Cancels U.S. Trip Amid Violence

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Saturday canceled a trip to the U.S. this month, during which he was expected to meet President Bush, diminishing hopes for new momentum toward negotiations with the Palestinians.

Violence continued, with Israeli tanks firing shells and heavy machine-gun fire at security posts in the Gaza Strip, killing a major in the Palestinian security forces at Deir al Balah, south of Gaza City, Palestinian police and hospital officials said.

The Israeli army said it opened fire after shots were aimed from Deir al Balah at the isolated Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom.

Israeli helicopters launched a predawn missile attack on Palestinian security posts in northern Gaza today, witnesses said.

Sharon and Bush had scheduled a tentative meeting next Sunday during the U.N. General Assembly’s annual debate in New York. But the Israeli leader decided to postpone his trip to the U.S., as well as one to Britain, because of the security situation in the Mideast, Sharon spokesman David Baker said Saturday. No new date was set.

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat will attend the U.N. meeting from next weekend, Palestinian officials said.

Some analysts in Israel had expected that Sharon’s U.S. visit would be a platform for an attempt to reestablish some sort of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, or that Sharon would be compelled to present a concrete proposal for breaking the political deadlock.

Israel has been under intense U.S. pressure to withdraw from parts of several West Bank cities it entered after a Cabinet minister was assassinated Oct. 17. Israeli forces left Bethlehem and Beit Jalla on Monday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met Saturday with Arafat at an economic conference on the Spanish resort island of Majorca.

Peres said pullbacks could begin from other West Bank cities as soon as this week, provided a cease-fire holds. Israeli troops remain in Ramallah, Tulkarm, Jenin and Kalkilya. Israel says the incursions into the cities were necessary to maintain security.

In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of Israelis massed in Rabin Square on Saturday evening for a concert marking the sixth anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, gunned down by an Israeli extremist opposed to his peace efforts. Some of the posters in the crowd read “Peace Now” and “Enough of the Occupation.”