Israel Detains 14 Palestinians in the West Bank; 1 Slain in Gaza

Israeli forces detained at least 14 Palestinians in the West Bank on Saturday in a new sweep for militants.

An Israeli army spokesman said 12 “terror suspects” were seized overnight around Ramallah, political base of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, and two in the Bethlehem area. Troops continued scouring Bethlehem after daybreak.

On Saturday night, the Israeli army killed a Palestinian at the Gaza Strip’s flash-point border with Egypt.

Israeli military sources said that forces opened fire at Palestinian gunmen approaching them near the frontier town of Rafah about midnight and that one of them was hit. Palestinian security officials said Israel had handed over a man’s body from the scene.

On Friday, the army killed two militants in the West Bank. Hamas, an Islamic group sworn to Israel’s destruction and which has carried out suicide bombings in a nearly 27-month-old Palestinian uprising, issued new calls for revenge.

Middle East mediators were due to meet this week in Washington on a peace plan initiated more than six months ago. But diplomats said it was unlikely that the “road map” for three-stage rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians, culminating in security for the former and statehood for the latter, would be completed as scheduled on Dec. 20.

The mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- broadly agree on what the plan should include but disagree on when to release it.

Israelis and Palestinians disagree on the fundamental question of how specific the plan should be.

Complicating the timing is the Israeli general elections, scheduled for Jan. 28.

“Washington has made it clear that no final plan will be presented before the new government is in power,” an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office said. “Of course, that new government will then have to approve the plan.”

A Palestinian official said that demonstrated the United States was again acting as Israel’s guardian ally.

“This shows that the American policy intervenes only for the good of Sharon, not for the good of the peace process,” Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was to leave for a week of high-level talks in New York and Washington, the official in Sharon’s office said.

Mofaz was due to meet U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who in a Washington policy speech Thursday blamed the Middle East stalemate on Palestinian terrorism.

Washington backs Israel’s stance that Arafat bears responsibility for suicide bombings and other militant attacks, and has called for new Palestinian leaders to be elected.

Arafat denies culpability and says Israeli countermeasures in the territories have undermined his security forces’ capabilities. On Saturday, he hinted that his continued popularity would be proved by a vote scheduled for Jan. 20.

“Palestinian people will decide the new Palestinian leadership in the coming elections,” he told reporters at his Ramallah headquarters Saturday.