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Arafat vows defiance but renews cease-fire call



JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat renewed his call for a cease-fire with Israel on Saturday, but promised to resist increasing Israeli and U.S. pressure on the Palestinian Authority.

Speaking from his headquarters in the West Bank, which Israeli forces have surrounded since last Friday, Arafat blamed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for recent violence and insisted he would not back down.

"They could not shake us when they besieged us in Beirut," Arafat said Saturday from his West Bank headquarters, which Israeli forces have surrounded since January 18. "Now we're in Palestine -- what hope has [Sharon] of shaking us?"

Israel has mounted a sustained clampdown on the Palestinian Authority since a January 17 attack at a bat mitzvah gathering in Hadera that killed six Israelis. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an arm of Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the Hadera attack and for Tuesday's shooting spree in Jerusalem that wounded more than 40 Israelis.

The group said their attacks came in revenge for the killing of Fatah leader Raed al-Karmi on January 14 and for the deaths of four Hamas activists who were killed in an Israeli raid in the West Bank town of Nablus earlier Tuesday. Israeli authorities accused Karmi of being involved in the deaths of ten Israelis.

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CNN's John King reports on the Bush administration's disappointment in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat over an arms shipment (January 25)

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Attacks on Israelis had abated following Arafat's call for a cease-fire on December 16, which followed a rash of suicide attacks on Israeli civilians. But top Israeli officials have accused the Palestinian leader of supporting rather than combating terrorism.

Washington also has stepped up criticism of Arafat, particularly after getting evidence from Israel that U.S. officials said implicated senior Palestinian Authority leaders in a 50-ton arms shipment seized by Israel earlier this month.

"Ordering up weapons that were intercepted on a boat headed for that part of the world is not part of fighting terror," President Bush said Friday. "That's enhancing terror, and I'm very disappointed in him."

Angry at Arafat's continued denial of involvement in the shipment, several Bush administration officials -- led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney -- have pushed in recent days for the White House to cut ties with the Palestinian Authority, sources said.

U.S. officials said Bush finds himself in a vexing position: cutting ties or imposing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority could cause a ripple effect in the Arab world and likely end any hopes of getting the Mideast peace process back on track in the near future.

Other options reportedly being considered included adding Arafat's security force to the U.S. list of terrorist groups, closing the organization's Washington office and suspending the mediation efforts of Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni. An administration source said Secretary of State Colin Powell told has Arafat, "Without some action there is no envoy, there is no U.S. engagement."

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Sharon, not Arafat, was "destroying the peace process" and urged the United States to remain integrally involved in the region.

"I believe President Bush knows very well that Sharon is not a man of peace," Erakat said.

"At the same time, it doesn't cost President Bush anything to attack the Palestinians and to take sides with Israelis against the Palestinian Authority because of internal politics. And this can't be acceptable."

Sporadic clashes between Israeli and Palestinian forces continued Saturday. Palestinian sources said Israeli tanks fired six shells toward Palestinian positions in Beit Hanoun on Saturday. There was no word on casualties.

The Israeli Defense Forces said its tanks fired three shells on Saturday after identifying suspicious movement near the border between Gaza and Israel. The IDF later conducted searches but found nothing.

And Israeli military sources said an Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian man in the leg Saturday after he tried to grab the soldier's knife at a checkpoint west of Ramallah in the West Bank.

The IDF sources said the 27-year-old man was in stable condition when the Palestinian Red Crescent transported him to a hospital. But the Red Crescent said the man was dead at the scene, having lost too much blood before its ambulance arrived.

-- CNN correspondents Jerrold Kessel and John King contributed to this report.



 
 
 
 


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