Peace looks shaky after Israel kills Palestinian militants

TULKAREM, West Bank, Friday (AFP) Prospects for peace hung in the balance Friday as Islamic Jihad vowed revenge after Israeli soldiers killed five militants and plans were unveiled to expand the largest West Bank settlement.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas accused Israel Thursday of wrecking prospects for peace after the shootings, Israel's first deadly operation since the historic pullout of settlers from Gaza, which came as a British Jew was stabbed to death by a lone Arab in the first fatal Palestinian attack in Jerusalem's Old City in three years.

Washington called on both sides to exercise restraint and not squander the momentum created by Israel's clearance of all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

The bloodshed and plans to build a major new Israeli police station in the occupied West Bank deflated international optimism that the evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza would help revive the Middle East peace process after five years of conflict.

Abbas slammed the killings in Tulkarem, saying they undermined the peace process and a truce being observed by militants.

"At a time when the Palestinian Authority is trying to maintain calm, this murder intentionally aims at renewing the vicious cycle of violence," Abbas said in a statement, urging Palestinians "not to respond to such provocations".

The five gunmen, one from Islamic Jihad and the rest from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, were shot dead when an arrest operation in Tulkarem refugee camp disintegrated into a shootout. The army said all five were wanted in connection with a suicide bombing last month that killed five Israelis. The shootings provoked predictable cries of revenge from militants as several thousand mourners attended the funerals.

"The enemy should prepare the coffins for their soldiers and settlers because the revenge will be swift and deep inside Israel," Islamic Jihad said.

Gaza-based militants fired two makeshift rockets into southern Israel on Thursday in the first such attack since Israel evacuated all its settlers from the territory it has occupied for four decades. There were no casualties.

Violence also struck in Jerusalem's Old City where a young Jewish seminary student from London was stabbed to death by a Palestinian.

The international community has warned Israel that the Gaza withdrawal can only be a beginning, and pushed for a resumption of talks on the peace roadmap which targets the creation of a Palestinian state. However, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, having become the first Israeli leader to oversee a withdrawal from parts of the occupied Palestinian territories, said the onus was on the Palestinians for there to be progress on the roadmap.

"The burden of proof is now on the Palestinians... They must fight terrorism and dismantle its infrastructures in order to make possible progress on the roadmap," he was quoted by his office as telling the Norwegian prime minister.

An Israeli-Egyptian agreement on the deployment of Egyptian border guards along the frontier between Egypt and the Gaza Strip was to be submitted for Israeli cabinet approval on Sunday, Israeli public radio said Friday.

It would then go before the Knesset (parliament) on Wednesday.

The White House reiterated its view that the Gaza pullout was a "historic opportunity" and urged both sides to show restraint.

"We always denounce any violence and we urge both sides to exercise calm," spokesman Trent Duffy said in response to a question about Abbas's accusations against Israel. "We do believe that this is an historic opportunity to make real progress" towards peace.

Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, is to appeal to militant groups to prolong an eight-month informal truce during a visit to Gaza next week with Israel still to recall troops from the territory, Palestinian sources said.

The main militant group Hamas, however, vowed to pursue its campaign, specifically targeting the Israeli leader.

Sharon would be hounded "out of Palestine, dead or alive", its leader in Gaza, Mahmud al-Zahar, told the Portuguese news weekly Visao.