 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Israelis spurn U.S. pullout demand©Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times, JERUSALEM -- In a deepening confrontation Tuesday, Israel turned down a blunt U.S. demand to pull its army out of six Palestinian towns in the West Bank. Near one of the towns, Tulkarem, two Palestinians were killed Tuesday by Israeli gunfire, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said its soldiers returned Palestinian fire there. Israel sent its army into the West Bank towns after last week's assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. The killing was claimed by the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as vengeance for Israel's Aug. 27 killing of its leader. Israeli officials said that they would not pull out of the towns until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turns over Zeevi's assassins and stamps out rogue military groups. In its bluntest language yet, the U.S. government told Israel on Monday to withdraw its troops and end the incursions. "No further such incursions should be made," said State Department spokesman Philip Reeker. In Gaza, Arafat charged that Israel is ignoring the U.S. demands. "The Israeli position is a very dangerous one," he said. Israeli Foreign Minister official Gideon Meir insisted Tuesday that Israel would withdraw "immediately after it will clean up the terrorist nests which are deep-rooted there." Palestinian officials have said they had outlawed the PFLP's armed wing and had made numerous arrests, but Meir told the Associated Press that Arafat is not moving against the militants, so Israel must do it instead. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with U.S. officials in Washington. Afterward, he told Israel TV that Israel would pull out "soon." Much of the incursion's focus has been on the biblical town of Bethlehem. On Tuesday, gunfire there subsided as about 6,000 people, led by Christian clergy, marched to protest the violence. "God of peace, give our land peace," the crowd chanted as Israeli troops and tanks moved aside. Israeli tanks held positions a few miles from the Church of the Nativity, marking the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
