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Arafat urges 'work for peace' as four more Palestinians killed

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December 18, 2000 

JERUSALEM-- (UNB/AP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, using some of his most conciliatory language in weeks, said "Why not?" when asked Sunday about prospects for meeting Israel's prime minister. Even so, fresh violence claimed four more Palestinian lives - one in a mysterious explosion, and another apparently slain as a collaborator.

Despite the steadily increasing death toll - the Palestinian uprising, now in its 12th week, has killed 329 people, nearly all Palestinians - both sides appeared to be positioning themselves for a new drive to restart peace negotiations. Palestinians said consultations were to begin Tuesday in Washington.

Two of Sunday's deaths occurred in Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, a frequent flashpoint for clashes. Palestinian officials said two men were killed and three other people injured when an Israeli tank fired on them as they crossed a road. The army had no immediate comment.

In the West Bank refugee camp of Kalandia, north of Jerusalem, angry shouts of "Allahu Akbar!" rang out at the funeral procession for Sameh Malabee, a 28-year-old activist in Arafat's Fatah faction who had died hours earlier in an explosion under murky circumstances.

Palestinian officials suggested Malabee might have been targeted by Israeli security forces, but an Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the overnight blast might instead have been a "work accident" - a mordant term used by both sides to describe a bomb going off prematurely while the bombers are preparing it. The army had no comment.

During the 1987-92 intifada, or uprising, hundreds of Palestinians were slain by other Palestinians as collaborators with Israel - and that chilling phenomenon could be surfacing again.

A Palestinian who had once worked for the Israeli police was shot dead by a lone gunman in the West Bank village of Hares, witnesses said. Villagers said the dead man was considered a collaborator.

Drive-by shootings and roadside ambushes have made travel in the West Bank increasingly dangerous for Israelis. On Sunday, an Israeli was shot in the head and seriously wounded while traveling on a road near the settlement of Mevo Dotan, the army said.

On the negotiating front, Arafat aide Saeb Erekat said Palestinian and Israeli delegations would leave Monday night for consultations to begin Tuesday in Washington. Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, said the Americans would likely meet separately with the two sides first, and then try to bring them together.

Arafat, speaking to reporters in the Gaza Strip, also left open the possibility of face-to-face talks at some point with Barak, who is desperately trying to patch together a peace accord in the scant seven weeks remaining before a snap election.

"If there is a need to, why not?" Arafat said when asked about the possibility of sitting down with the Israeli prime minister. And at a meeting with leftist Israeli lawmakers who traveled to Gaza to see him, he said: "Let's work for peace."

The conciliatory tone of Arafat's remarks was a notable departure from his confrontational stance earlier in the crisis. Back in October, as stone-throwing clashes began turning to bloody gun battles in the West Bank and Gaza, he said Barak could "go to hell."

But Arafat did not let the latest deaths go unremarked on, saying killings of Palestinians by Israel "did not help the peace process."

The spasm of fighting broke out in late September after right-wing Israeli politician Ariel Sharon made a visit to the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's walled Old City, the third-holiest shrine in Islam.

Al Aqsa is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle for sovereignty over Jerusalem, and on Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami suggested that any new talks could involve the fate of the disputed mosque compound, which is built on the ruins of the ancient Jewish Temple, Judaism's most sacred site.

Islamic religious authorities have day-to-day control of the compound, but Israel claims sovereignty over it.

"We need to find a solution for the Temple Mount that fits with the current situation," Ben-Ami told Israel's army radio, using the Jewish term for the hilltop enclosure. However, he did not say what concessions, if any, Israel might offer the Palestinians, who demand full control over the compound.

Arafat said the sensitive subject of Al Aqsa - which helped torpedo the summer's Camp David summit - hadn't yet come up.

"It will be discussed in Washington or here in the region after that, but the negotiations haven't dealt with this issue up until now," he said.

Adding to the complexity, Arab leaders say the fate of Jerusalem and its holy sites was not only for the Palestinians to work out with Israel.

"Jerusalem is a matter that concerns all Muslim and Christian peoples," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday in a speech opening the new parliament. "The issue of Jerusalem is a sensitive one ... and the Palestinian leadership is not free to determine (its future)."

Meanwhile, in a sign of easing tensions, thousands of Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip were allowed into Israel to work on Sunday. Restrictions keeping them out had been eased Friday, but few laborers crossed over on the Muslim Sabbath.

Since the start of the violence, Israel has imposed tight curbs on the movements of Palestinian workers, on whose earnings the entire Palestinian economy is heavily dependent.