U.S. envoys greeted without optimism by Israel, Palestinians
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Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
JERUSALEM Ñ Two U.S. envoys have launched an effort to implement a
ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as troops withdrew
from a major West Bank city.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and [Ret.] Gen. Anthony
Zinni are meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders. The two also plan to tour
the West Bank and Gaza Strip to examine the hot-spots in the
Israeli-Palestinian war.
Zinni, the former head of U.S. Central Command, meets Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon on Tuesday. He later meets Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.
Neither Israelis nor Palestinians expressed optimism over the U.S.
effort. "We need a lot of imagination," Peres said.
Overnight Tuesday, Israeli troops pulled out of the West Bank city of
Jenin. Israeli military sources said the decision was timed, in part, for
the arrival of Zinni. Jenin was the last of the six West Bank cities where
Israeli troops had been deployed in the wake of the Palestinian
assassination of former Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi last month.
Israeli military sources said Jenin was the launching pad for numerous
Palestinian suicide attacks inside Israel. They said most of the attacks
were organized by the Islamic opposition groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
On Tuesday morning, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire with Kalachnikov
assault rifles in a shooting spree into a crowd in the street market in the
northern Israeli town of Afula. Two people were killed and more than 40
people were injured, 10 seriously. Israeli security forces shot and killed
the gunmen.
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