Attacks cloud possible Mideast deal

[Gość: The New York Times]

www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/6174156.htm
Posted on Thu, Jun. 26, 2003

Attacks cloud possible Mideast deal
By James Bennet
The New York Times

JERUSALEM - Israel and the militant group Hamas continued to trade blows
Wednesday, even as Palestinian officials said that an agreement among
Palestinian factions to suspend violence against Israel was all but sealed.

The Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, and several governments have
pushed for the agreement, but President Bush warned Wednesday that a cease-
fire was not enough.

"It's one thing to make a verbal agreement," Bush told reporters in
Washington. "But in order for there to be peace in the Middle East, we must
see organizations such as Hamas dismantled."

Bush made his comments shortly after an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles
at a Palestinian car in the Gaza Strip that the army said was packed with
mortar shells targeting Israeli settlements. The attack killed two people,
including a woman, who were described by Palestinians as bystanders.

At least one Palestinian militant was wounded, among at least 16 others,
Palestinian officials said.

Calling the strike an attempted assassination of one of its members, Hamas
officials in Gaza said that it would postpone any action on the proposed
cease-fire.

The Israeli airstrike came after a day of chaotic violence. Earlier, two
Hamas gunmen were slain when they attacked an Israeli post in the northern
Gaza Strip, in the town of Beit Hanoun. Hamas fired at least one crude rocket
over the Gaza boundary at the Israeli town of Sderot. There were no injuries.

Palestinian officials accused Israel of seeking to scuttle the cease-fire
with a series of missile strikes and military raids as talks progressed among
Palestinian factions in recent weeks. But Qadoura Fares, a Palestinian
legislator involved in the negotiations, said late Wednesday night that an
agreement could come as soon as today.