Yasser Arafat knows "by heart" the names of those behind a deadly attack in Israel at the weekend, an Israeli official charged today, accusing the Palestinian leader of having daily talks with them.
The grave accusations, made by a senior Israeli military intelligence officer who asked not to be named, came after Mr Arafat had pledged to crack down on Israeli extremists as part of a shaky truce deal agreed a month ago.
The official said the attack in Hadera city centre yesterday, which left four Israeli women as well as two gunmen dead, had been planned and executed by four members of the hardline Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad who headed a list of suspects that Israel had given to Mr Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
The officer said that Mr Arafat "knows their names by heart, has daily conversations with them and knows exactly where they are."
He said "no effort" was made to crack down on Islamic Jihad despite a vague pledge made by the Palestinian Authority to rein in military groups following the murder of an Israeli minister by one of them on October 17.
The Israeli officer said Arafat's condemnation of the Hadera attack was not enough.
"We need to see a fight against terror and Arafat has no intention of doing this," he said, adding that according to Israeli intelligence, one of the two gunmen who opened fire on a crowded bus stop was a Palestinian policeman and the other had recently joined the Palestinian security forces.
The attack, which also injured 31 people, was claimed in a statement by Islamic Jihad, in revenge for a bloody Israeli raid on the West Bank village of Beit Rima the week before.
AFP