Tempers Rise as Peace Effort Sputters

Horns honked and tempers flared Thursday as Israeli troops blocked Palestinian traffic for six hours on the main north-south road in the Gaza Strip -- only three days after the thoroughfare’s reopening had been hailed as one of the first tangible signs of progress in implementing an American-backed peace initiative.

The blockade, imposed hours after Palestinians fired three antitank missiles at a Jewish settlement in central Gaza, pointed to a pattern that is emerging in the early days of implementation of the new peace process: movement by fits and starts, steps forward sometimes matched by setbacks.

The cease-fire declared Sunday by the main Palestinian militant groups, which helped set the stage for Israeli troop pullbacks this week in the West Bank town of Bethlehem and in Gaza, was largely holding. However, a senior Hamas leader predicted it would soon fail.

“The Zionist enemy is always violating agreements, so I don’t think the truce will last long,” said Abdulaziz Rantisi, who narrowly escaped assassination by Israel last month.

Though violence on the ground has diminished sharply, some Palestinian militants have refused to accept the cease-fire and have continued to carry out shootings and other attacks against Israelis. The Israeli army lodged a formal complaint with the Palestinians on Thursday about 18 such incidents that had occurred since Sunday.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, called the attacks “acts of sabotage,” adding, “We do not accept them.”

New threats were made. In the West Bank town of Kalkilya, where Israeli special forces arrested a local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and killed his deputy in a raid before dawn Thursday, armed men marched in the funeral procession, shouting vows of vengeance.

The coffin of the slain man, Mahmoud Shawer, was carried through the streets wrapped in a Palestinian flag. The Israeli army said that Shawer was killed when he tried to flee as troops approached him and that he was armed at the time.

His comrades said they would break the cease-fire declared Sunday.

“Our retaliation will come quickly and will be like an earthquake!” a local leader of Al Aqsa shouted through a megaphone to the marchers.

The group, an offshoot of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, has been divided over whether to abide by the truce declared by groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It claimed responsibility for another shooting this week.

The day brought conciliatory gestures as well.

Israel freed 52 Palestinian detainees, all of them picked up 10 days earlier in a mass roundup in the West Bank town of Hebron that targeted Hamas suspects.

Israeli and Palestinian officials are to meet over the weekend to talk about larger-scale prisoner releases.

Also Thursday, Israel freed a senior Palestinian security official, Suleiman abu Mutlak, who had been detained without charges for nearly two months. He was held on suspicion of involvement in attacks against Israelis.

Abu Mutlak, who was freed by a military court, is a close associate of Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, who praised the decision to release him but said Israel had been wrong to arrest him in the first place.

Prime Minister Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, warned on a visit to Gaza that unless large numbers of prisoners are freed soon, the cease-fire would be in jeopardy. The release of some of the thousands of prisoners held by Israel is a key demand of both the militant groups and the Palestinian government.

Palestinian security officials said they had arrested four militants on charges of firing mortar shells at Jewish settlements in Gaza. Two were reportedly arrested in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, and the others in Gaza City on Thursday.

Abbas’ visit to Gaza underscored his political vulnerability. Among Palestinians, he is far less popular than either Arafat or Hamas.

A group of angry demonstrators demanded to know why the prime minister had not visited people whose homes had been demolished by Israeli troops.

Along the blocked-off north-south roadway, where hundreds of Palestinians waited hours in the hot sun for the road to reopen, the mood was also angry. A huge traffic jam formed, made up of dilapidated passenger cars, donkey-drawn carts, trucks and taxis. People got out of their cars and waited by the dusty roadside, hoping to be allowed to pass.

“Abu Mazen should come and see this,” said an 18-year-old Palestinian student who was unable to get to her university for her final exams, which were held Thursday morning. “It’s very, very difficult. We are suffering.”

The road, closed at 7 a.m., reopened six hours later. An Israeli military bulldozer removed concrete barriers that had been placed across it.

An Israeli security source said the blockade was a result of antitank missiles’ being fired late the night before at the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, which lies close to the main road.

Under terms of the Israeli troop pullback in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority is responsible for keeping order and preventing such attacks.

Four people inside the settlement were hurt by shrapnel, but authorities said none of the injuries were serious. The army said assailants had aimed at a central square well known as a hangout for the community’s young people.

Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops manning the blockade fired shots at several vehicles, injuring two drivers. The army acknowledged firing warning shots toward two vehicles that approached the roadblock at high speed, but a spokesman said the military knew of no resulting injuries.

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Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammalah in Gaza City contributed to this report.