The Hindu : Israeli troops pull back

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 21, 2003

International

International

Israeli troops pull back

JERUSALEM May 20. Israeli troops pulled to the edges of a Palestinian town in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, despite five suicide bombings that killed 12 Israelis in 48 hours and endangered a U.S.-backed West Asia peace initiative.

The pullback from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza suggested Israel is holding off on large-scale retaliation for now, amid international concern that new strikes would further weaken the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mr. Abbas is seen as instrumental in implementing the ``road map'' to peace plan, a three-stage prescription for ending violence and setting up a Palestinian state by 2005. However, Mr. Abbas has said he will not launch a crackdown on militias — a crucial step in the first phase — until Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has accepted the plan.

Mr. Sharon has refused to do so, saying he wants to discuss his objections with the U.S. President, George W. Bush. A Bush-Sharon meeting had been scheduled for Tuesday, but Mr. Sharon postponed his Washington trip indefinitely because of the bombings.

Mr. Bush remained confident the peace plan can be implemented. ``But it is clear that the process is not going to be smooth so long as terrorists kill,'' he said on Monday.

The Israeli-Palestinian deadlock has left the field to the militants who are trying to torpedo the peace efforts and weaken Mr. Abbas. In the past, the Islamic militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have stepped up attacks whenever there was increased hope of progress toward peace.

In the latest bombing, a Palestinian woman, 19-year-old Hiba Daraghmeh, blew herself up at a back entrance of a shopping mall in the northern Israeli town of Afula on Monday. Daraghmeh detonated the explosives as she approached security guards checking shoppers.

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