Talks Press On Despite Attacks

In life, Tzipi and Gadi Shemesh were planning for the birth of their third child. Instead, they were buried Friday, side by side.

The Shemeshes were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber Thursday, minutes after they emerged from a downtown laboratory where they had seen ultrasound pictures of the baby they were expecting. They had just enough time to telephone a relative with the news.

Then the bomber blew himself up on Jerusalem’s busy King George V Street, taking with him the Shemeshes and 48-year-old Yitzhak Cohen, a clothing merchant and father of six who had moved to Jerusalem from a West Bank settlement for safety’s sake.

On Friday, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at an Israeli army checkpoint near the West Bank town of Jenin, the third such attack in as many days. Ten Israelis were killed in the two previous days; on Friday, only the bomber died, while several soldiers were slightly wounded. The army said the man was trying to travel into Israel when his taxi was stopped.

Despite the violence, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met Friday for another round of truce talks under U.S. supervision. The meeting ended inconclusively, but the fact that it occurred at all was noteworthy. Israel had canceled Thursday night’s session and threatened reprisals for the suicide attacks.

Instead of immediate retaliation, however, Israel was persuaded to hold off by U.S. envoy Anthony C. Zinni. The retired Marine Corps general is trying to push the two sides into a cease-fire in time to allow Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney early next week, possibly in Egypt, and then travel to the midweek Arab League summit in Beirut.

Another cease-fire meeting was scheduled for Sunday. Israeli television quoted Avi Dichter, the head of Israel’s internal security agency, as having warned the Palestinians at Friday’s meeting that the next attack would not go unanswered.

The two sides reportedly were far apart on a timetable for enacting a truce as drafted last summer by CIA Director George J. Tenet. The plan envisions, among other steps, Israel pulling back troops while the Palestinians arrest and disarm militants.

Zinni traveled to the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday and had what was described as one of his most tense encounters yet with Arafat. The body language told the story: During a photo opportunity, Zinni sat grim-faced, his square jaw locked stone-hard in a frown. Arafat scowled and slumped in his chair, covering part of his face with his hand.

Zinni accused Arafat publicly Thursday of failing to take action to stop attacks on Israeli civilians. Under direct pressure from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Arafat went on Palestinian television Thursday night to order his people to refrain from attacking Israeli civilians in Israel.

But a top commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an underground militia affiliated with Arafat’s Fatah movement, said Friday that he and his men were ignoring Arafat’s command.

“We are going to continue with our armed resistance,” said Naser Oweis, a commander based in the Nablus area of the West Bank. “We will continue on the path of martyrdom.”

Oweis said the Bush administration’s decision to put the Al Aqsa brigade on its list of terrorist organizations is “a medal of honor that we hang on our chests.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, speaking to diplomats, delivered an especially bleak assessment of the volatile moment. He said Thursday’s bombing “blew to smithereens” everything that Zinni had worked to accomplish.

Though it is still unclear whether Arafat will be allowed to travel to the Arab summit, one of his Cabinet ministers, Nabil Shaath, said the Palestinian leader won’t leave unless he receives guarantees that he will be allowed to return home.

A segment of the Israeli public, spearheaded by right-wing politicians such as former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, advocates expelling Arafat.

Three Palestinian deaths were reported Friday, including that of a 4-year-old girl who died of injuries she received during Israeli army shooting near her home in the Gaza Strip’s Rafah area.

Israelis buried the Shemesh couple at Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl military cemetery. Gadi, 34, was an officer in the army and was entitled to a military funeral because he died in the line of duty. Only a special order from the defense minister allowed Tzipi, 32, to be buried with him.

Tzipi Shemesh was five months pregnant when she was killed. The couple left behind two daughters.