ISRAEL: The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, traded verbal barbs yesterday, with Mr Arafat accusing Israel of only being interested in "more escalation" and Mr Sharon saying the Palestinian acceptance of a plan for an Israeli withdrawal was no more than a "trick".
The verbal recriminations were a reflection of the ongoing violence on the ground, with one Israeli and three Palestinians, two of them militants, killed in clashes over the weekend.
Mr Arafat accused the Israeli government of not being sincere about peace, saying: "This government is looking only for more escalation for its military plans. They are not looking to achieve peace," he said at his Ramallah compound.
Mr Sharon, who last week referred to the Palestinian Authority as a "murderous gang", continued his barrage yesterday, calling Mr Arafat "the head of terrorism" and declaring that the Palestinian acceptance of Israel's "Gaza first" plan was "a trick designed to coincide with the talks between Palestinian officials and US leaders".
Mr Sharon was insinuating that the Palestinian Authority cabinet had only supported the plan, which envisages a staged withdrawal from the occupied territories in exchange for a Palestinian crackdown on militants, in an effort to curry diplomatic favor with the Americans.
Palestinian and US officials held their first high-level talks in Washington over the weekend since President George Bush in June called for the removal of Mr Arafat.
The Palestinian leader did, however, describe the talks yesterday as "very positive". In a meeting on Saturday the Palestinian Interior Minister, Mr Abdel Razek Yehiyeh, and the CIA director, Mr George Tenet, discussed a reform programme aimed at unifying the multiple arms of Mr Arafat's security network under a more centralised and disciplined command structure.
While Mr Yehiyeh complained that revamping Palestinian security forces was impossible as long as Israel maintained its vice-like military grip on the West Bank, Israeli media reports said Mr Tenet was not at all convinced the time was ripe for the implementation of a security plan, and that this should wait until the violence in the territories ebbed.
Meanwhile, in one of his most impassioned pleas for an end to Middle East violence, Pope John Paul II yesterday expressed empathy with the predicament of Palestinians, who he said were subject to "collective punishment", as well as Israelis, who were "the target of anonymous attackers".
"When will one learn that coexistence between the Israeli and Palestinian people cannot result from arms?
"Neither attacks, nor walls of separation, nor retaliation will ever lead to a just solution of the conflict under way," the Pope said at his summer palace in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome.
But the plea went unheeded in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where violence continued unabated. A Palestinian gunman who opened fire on Israelis working on a fence at a settlement in the northern Gaza Strip was tracked down and killed in a firefight with Israeli troops. One Israeli was moderately injured in the attack.
On Saturday evening an Israeli woman was killed and her husband seriously injured when a Palestinian gunman opened fire after cutting through the fence surrounding the settlement of Moshav Mechora in the Jordan Valley. The gunman was shot dead by troops guarding the settlement.
Earlier in the day in Nablus, the army shot and killed Mr Ahmed Kouraini (55), who worked for the city's electrical works department.
The army, which later expressed sorrow over the incident, insisted that the troops had opened fire after a Palestinian truck approached a checkpoint during curfew and failed to stop. Palestinians said that city workers had been given free movement despite the army-imposed curfew.
Also on Saturday Israeli troops shot dead an armed member of the radical Islamic Hamas movement as he was trying to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip.
Recriminations also raged on the Israeli-Egyptian front yesterday, with an Israeli government official accusing President Hosni Mubarak of meddling in domestic Israeli politics.