Israel rejected a new Arab plan for Middle East peace in its current form today and considered a tough military response to a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 20 at a Passover holiday feast.
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Rescue worker looks for survivors in the bombed hotel yesterday
Photo: Reuters |
Fears of an Israeli military blitz swept the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Police headquarters in Palestinian self-rule zones were evacuated and Israeli authorities sealed off Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt, Palestinian sources said.
They said Israeli tanks and troops had blocked main roads through Gaza, dividing the Mediterranean strip in three, and tightened a closure of its volatile Erez junction with Israel.
Endorsed unanimously by Arab heads of state at a summit in Beirut earlier today, a Saudi blueprint offers Israel normal relations if it withdraws from all Arab lands seized in the 1967 Middle East War, including Gaza and the West Bank.
It also calls on Israel to accept a Palestinian state and a just solution to the problem of 3.6 million Palestinian refugees according to a 1948 UN resolution that calls for them to be repatriated or compensated.
"The Saudi initiative, as it was presented by the summit of the Arab League, represents a non-starter in its current form," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman MR Emmanuel Nachshon said.
Mr Nachshon said Israel was not rejecting the proposal as such but could not discuss it along the lines adopted at the summit.
Yesterday’s suicide attack at a seaside hotel crippled US special envoy Mr Anthony Zinni's renewed bid to mediate a truce after two abortive attempts last year.
The bombing, carried out by the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas to avenge Israeli army killings in the tit-for-tat violence, also dimmed hopes of a warm Israeli welcome to the Saudi proposal to resolve the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict.
A government spokesman said Israel would decide on how to retaliate to the bombing.
Hee said Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon had not summoned his security cabinet but was consulting Defence Minister Mr Binyamin Ben-Eliezer by telephone. Ben-Eliezer also met security aides.
Mr Sharon had been in touch with the United States, the spokesman said but gave no details.