MIDDLE EAST: The Isreali Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, acknowledged yesterday what Palestinian critics have charged for years: that he wishes Israel had killed Mr Yasser Arafat when Israeli troops had the Palestinian leader in their gun sights 20 years ago.
Although an aide to the prime minister declared hurriedly that Israel was now committed "not to harm" Mr Arafat personally, Mr Sharon was unequivocal in telling a newspaper interviewer that, back in 1982, "I'm sorry we didn't eliminate him".
At the time, Mr Sharon was defence minister, overseeing Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon, and Mr Arafat and his PLO fighters were trapped on the outskirts of Beirut, ultimately to be driven out of the country.
As the Intifada between Israel and the Palestinians has flared these past 16 months, Mr Arafat has often characterised it in personal terms, asserting that Mr Sharon is bent on settling an old score. Mr Sharon, for his part, has branded Mr Arafat an unreformed terrorist and liar.
Nevertheless, in further remarks from the interview, excerpted yesterday and to be published in full today in the Ma'ariv tabloid, Mr Sharon said he would be prepared to negotiate with the Palestinian president, and would relinquish parts of the occupied West Bank for an independent, demilitarised Palestinian state, "if Arafat takes all the steps were are demanding of him".
The prime minister has conditioned a resumption of peace talks on a full-scale crackdown by Mr Arafat on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other extremist groups.
Palestinian officials reacted furiously to the newspaper interview, with Mr Saeb Erekat, the former chief peace negotiator, citing Mr Sharon's "gangster intentions" as indicative of the mindset of the entire Israeli government. "I think this reflects what has been always said: that Sharon is trying to finish what he began in 1982," he said.
The current EU President, Spain's Foreign Minister, Mr Josep Pique, also condemned the comments. "If they correspond to what Prime Minister Sharon has said," said Mr Pique, "I must say that I deplore them and of course they deserve our rejection."
While Mr Arafat has given several incendiary speeches in recent days, declaring his hope to die as "a martyr" for the cause of Jerusalem, his Gaza security chief, Mr Mohammad Dahlan, published an article in the Hebrew Ha'aretz yesterday pleading with Israelis to be "our partners in life in this land".
Significantly, Mr Dahlan em- braced a position not yet publicly endorsed by Mr Arafat, in which the Palestinian refugee problem would be resolved without altering "the demographic character of the State of Israel". Mr Arafat has insisted that some four million Palestinians have a "right of return" to Israel - an influx that would render Israel a bi-national, rather than a Jewish, state.
In the Gaza Strip yesterday, Israeli troops shot dead two Hamas militants who had detonated a roadside bomb and fired on a truck carrying Thai agricultural workers, none of whom was hurt.
Mortar shells were fired at an Israeli settlement in Gaza, and settlers at Elon Moreh in the West Bank said they injured and captured two Palestinians who had broken through the perimeter fencing. In Ramallah, Palestinian officials said a teenager died of wounds sustained last week when he was fired on by troops.