US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell played down hopes of a Middle East ceasefire on Tuesday, saying he had made progress but might not have a truce in hand when he wraps up his peace mission tomorrow.
The Palestinians dismissed Mr Powell's "progress" report, insisting that until Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon ends his army's offensive on the West Bank and pulls back troops, talk of a breakthrough was out of the question.
Mr Powell, who met with Mr Sharon for a third time today, will leave the region tomorrow morning after another round of talks with Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat. He will stop in Cairo on the way back to Washington.
Mr Powell has been trying to get Sharon to end the devastating offensive, and pushed Mr Arafat to stop suicide bombings and attacks which have killed scores of Israeli civilians.
Mr Sharon announced a limited withdrawal on Monday. But Israeli troops tightened their grip on the West Bank with a raid on a Nablus refugee camp, where a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead, and an in-and-out incursion in Tulkarem, a town Israel withdrew from last week.
Another young Palestinian in the West Bank town of Hebron was killed by the Israeli army, Palestinian security sources said
The army also moved into two villages near Bethlehem and arrested a number of Palestinians, residents said. US officials have been working with both sides to hammer out statements that could be presented as a kind of truce deal, but Mr Powell acknowledged that the final result would probably not even include the word "ceasefire."
"The specific term 'ceasefire' has not quite the same significance as what actually happens," said Mr Powell. He did not clarify but added: "We're working on it." White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said US President George W. Bush "will continue to pay close attention" to developments. Powell was "doing an excellent job," he said.
The statements from the two sides would commit them to trying to work toward peace and security talks later, falling well short of a solid ceasefire to end more than 18 months of bloodshed that have claimed around 2,000 lives.
"I think we're making progress and I look forward to furthering that progress over the next 24 hours," Powell told reporters before meeting with Sharon. "I don't want to get into specifics as to what I'll be able to achieve and not be able to achieve," he said.
But Palestinian information minister Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo said: "Before talking of progress in any talks ... there has to be an implementation of the UN resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal from all towns, villages and refugee camps occupied by the Israeli army."
Mr Arafat called for an urgent summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference on the Middle East crisis, a top advisor said.
Mr Powell has been told by Arab leaders since leaving the United States in early April that US credibility is at stake over its ally Israel's offensive, which Mr Sharon says is aimed at crushing a "terrorist infrastructure."
The man at the top of Israel's most-wanted list, Mr Marwan Barghuti, was captured in Ramallah yesterday, and Mr Sharon said he would be put on trial for mass murder. "He will be brought before an Israeli court for the murder of hundreds of Israelis, babies, children, women," the prime minister told army radio. Mr Barghuti (42) is suspected of heading the militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which have claimed a number of deadly anti-Israeli attacks, including a suicide bombing in Jerusalem just hours after Powell's arrival.
The armed wing of the Islamic militant Hamas warned Mr Sharon of a high price to pay for the arrest. "You have opened the gates of hell for yourselves by your arrest of this national leader, and you have made yourselves legitimate targets to be killed and assassinated," said the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
Mr Powell has been pressing Mr Arafat to end suicide bombings and other attacks on Israel as part of the Palestinian side's commitment to ending the bloodshed. But they have repeatedly insisted Mr Sharon's forces must quit all West Bank towns, a point on which Sharon was vague in an interview yesterday with CNN.
He said troops would be out of Jenin and Nablus within a week, but that they would not leave Ramallah and Bethlehem until operations there were over.
AFP