Sharon drops demand for calm

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Friday that 58 Palestinians had died in the deadliest day of 17 months of bloodshed with Israel.

"(Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and the Israeli government are destroying the peace of the braves that I had reached with my partner, (the)Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin," Arafat said.

The fighting raged on as Sharon dropped his insistence on seven days of calm before starting cease-fire talks with the Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke by telephone with Arafat, Sharon and the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amre Moussa. The calls followed President George Bush's announcement Thursday that he would send former Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni to the region to renew consultations with both sides.

"We have to offer that hope, we have to offer that possibility, and it is a method that the parties have, at times in the past, either used or been willing to use to reduce the violence," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday.

Sharon on Israeli television Friday said he was dropping his call for at least seven days of quiet before the Israelis would begin negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. On Wednesday, an Israeli gun ship nearly killed Arafat's chief of intelligence, Amin al-Hindi. On Friday Israeli soldiers in central Gaza killed Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mefraj, the highest-ranking Palestinian officer ever killed in a clash with Israeli forces since the start of the Intifadah on September 28, 2000.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv protested the assassination attempt of al-Hindi with senior Israeli officials. "These kinds of strikes are exceedingly counterproductive, you are threatening the potential cooperation from the very people who would and could help you," one State Department official told United Press International.

The attacks Friday came after a Palestinian gunman killed five people at an Israeli settlement in Gaza late Thursday.

Israeli helicopter gunships Friday fired three missiles at the Palestinian National Security Forces headquarters in the southern Gaza town, Palestinian sources said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Also Friday, Israeli Apache helicopters attacked several buildings and an electricity transmitter in the towns of Halhoul and Yatta near the West Bank town of Hebron, Palestinian security sources said.

The attack came after Palestinian militants fired a Qassam-2 rocket from northern Gaza Strip at southern Israel.

A senior Palestinian security official was killed early Friday in southern Gaza as Israeli armed forces continued a ferocious assault on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

General Abu Hemeid Al Mari, commander of the Palestinian Authority public security in the southern Gaza Strip, and three bodyguards were killed by Israeli gunfire near Abasan, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

Abu Hemeid is the first senior Palestinian security official to be killed by Israeli troops during the intifada. Israeli military sources said Friday there had been no intent to harm the security official.

In recent days there have been several cases in which Palestinian gunmen in Beit Jalla fired at the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo and at motorists on a road linking Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlement bloc.

All told, 18 Palestinians were killed and 50 wounded Thursday, as the Israeli army continued air, ground and sea raids on Palestinian villages and refugee camps, Palestinian sources said.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Thursday that Palestinians had killed 30 Israelis and wounded 140 in the past week. He spoke before the Atsmona attack. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said Friday 60 Palestinians had been killed since early Thursday.

More than 1,200 people have died in the current intifada, most of them Palestinian.

Israel also retaliated for Astmona shooting attack. The army carried out operations in the village of Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis.

(With reporting by Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza, Joshua Brilliant in Tel Aviv and Eli Lake in Washington)

"More than 1,200 people have died in the current intifada, most of them Palestinian."

It's time for the press to stop repeating this mantra. 400 Israelis have been killed, and this quote minimizes their deaths.

They even include the suicide bombers in the number of Palestinian "victims"! Talk about a fellow that has killed his parents and now asks for mercy, because he is an orphan

Clear a 5 KM buffer zone, as in no people, no buildings, a free fire zone. The Palies and friends have proven that they are not to be trusted, at all. No men, women, or nits should enter this "clean" (and swept frequently) buffer without being foamed (that firehose applied polymer to encase perps) and "arrested" or simply shot on sight and left to the birds and bugs. No Islamic prade "burials".

This "Pal Qaeda War" has started and needs to be dealt with by the ultimate victors. If that be Israel, then get busy. The failed peace process is wasting too much air time and print, not to mention maimed and dead innocents. This is but one theater of operations in WWIII.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv protested the assassination attempt of al-Hindi with senior Israeli officials. "These kinds of strikes are exceedingly counterproductive, you are threatening the potential cooperation from the very people who would and could help you," one State Department official told United Press International.

Think back to last October when Powell was cautioning against a "disproportionate response". And also remember the Predator that was NOT cleared by the JAG to kill Omar when it had that scumbag in its sights. Maybe the JAG said: "We can't kill that man... he's one of the very people how can HELP us."

The State Department, like Arafat, and like most lawyers everywhere, are irrelevant.

Yeah, the Palestinian deaths include suicide bombers, would be bombers who are stopped, attackers with guns and grenades, etc.

most of the Israeli casualties are innocent children and women -- eating pizza (20 murdered), waiting in line at a disco (20 murdered), riding on a municipal bus (25 murdered), attending a bar mitzva (6 murdered), going to the market (7 murdered) driving on roads etc. The audacity of the news reporters to elevate the deaths of mass-murderers above that of their victims is astounding in this regard.

They must simply hate Israel, or have some kind of innate leftists bias that says that the poorer class are always more righteous, etc..

I thought Sharon was going to do the buffer plan, then he backtracked. What's happening with buffers and why did he not do them?

Do Palestinians sweep the streets and clean the toilets in Israel? If so, perhaps providing low wage labor for unpleasant jobs is holding up the buffer plan.

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