MIDDLE EAST: Originally alarmed that President Bush might be planning to alter the US-backed "road map for peace" in the Middle East, Palestinian officials said over the weekend they had been assured by their American counterparts the plan would not be changed.
Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon, however, appeared on the verge of presenting his response to the plan - one void of any reference to an "independent" Palestinian state.
In the southern Gaza Strip, meanwhile, an American woman peace activist, attempting to block an Israeli army bulldozer demolishing a Palestinian home, was run over and crushed to death yesterday.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Mr Saeb Erekat said on Saturday he had been assured by US Middle East envoy Mr David Satterfield that the road map would be unchanged from last year's draft, and that the only outstanding issue was how exactly it would be implemented.
"This is significant because it means the United States won't support changes, even if those changes come from Israel," said Mr Erekat.
The Palestinians fear Mr Bush's conditioning of the release of the road map on the allocation of real powers to a Palestinian Authority prime minister will delay implementation.
But if Israel has its way, the road map, prepared by the quartet - US, UN, EU and Russia - will be substantively different from the original draft. According to a report yesterday in the Haaretz daily newspaper, the idea of an independent Palestinian state, initially to be established with temporary borders, is replaced with "certain attributes of sovereignty", in an Israeli document outlining a string of road map alterations.
The document stipulates that progress will be "conditioned upon the complete cessation of violence and terrorism, full disarmament of terrorist organisations, their capabilities and infrastructure, the complete collection of illegal weapons and the emergence of a new and different \ leadership". Mr Bush's linkage between the road map and an empowered Palestinian prime minister, is an attempt to ensure that senior PLO official Mr Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who was recently appointed to the post, does not become a figurehead.
In Gaza, Ms Rachel Corey (23), a student from the US, was killed by an army bulldozer in the Rafah refugee camp, as she and other activists, who try to operate as "human shields" in a bid to prevent actions by the military, attempted to stop the demolition of a home.
"Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop," said another activist, Mr Greg Schnabel, from Chicago.
"She waved for the bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going . . . It had completely run over her and then it reversed and ran back over her," he said.
The army said the death was an accident, and that the woman had been hit by a concrete block shifted by the bulldozer.