ISRAEL has told President Yasser Arafat to destroy the infrastructure and arrest the key activists of the Hamas Islamic movement or risk the Israeli army entering the Palestinian autonomous areas and doing the job for him.
At an extraordinary meeting last night on the Gaza Israel border, Israel's chief of staff, Gen Amnon Shahak, gave Mr Arafat a list of the names of Ham as militants and their hideouts, and demanded the Palestinian security forces carry out immediate arrests. He also told Mr Arafat Israel intends to maintain the closure order on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, imposed after Sunday's twin Hamas suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Ashkelon, for several months.
Mr Arafat's forces have arrested over 120 Hamas members since the bombings, but most are low level political activists, and none are from the Izzedin al Qassam military wing responsible for masterminding the attacks. The bombers who died along with 25 Israelis in the Jerusalem and Ashkelon bombings have been named as Majdi Abu Wardeh (19), and Ibrahim Sarahneh (26), both from the Al-Fawar refugee camp south of Hebron. That area is still under Israeli, rather than Palestinian, control.
With the credibility of the peace process severely undermined and his government's popularity slipping fast, the Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, indicated yesterday he might postpone the next phase of the process next month's scheduled Israeli troop withdrawal from Hebron unless Mr Arafat took firmer action against the militants. Gen Shahak Knesset members he had doubt that Hamas, and its shoot, Islamic Jihad, were planning further attacks.
Mr Peres lead in the opinion surveys has been all but wiped out since Sunday's bombing's and the right wing Likud opposition may be further boosted by a new alliance taking shape between Mr Benjamin Netanyau and his erstwhile deputy, Mr David Levy.
Gen Shahak said yesterday he saw no hint of a deal under which Hamas would agree to a ceasefire in any case, few Israelis, in the aftermath of the latest blasts, are interested in Mr Arafat's internal calculations. His standing in Israel has been badly rocked by the latest blasts, and still further dented by charges he issued on Monday that fanatical Israeli extremists gave Hamas the explosives used in Sunday's bombs. And every blow to Mr Arafat's credibility is a blow, too, to Mr Peres chances of winning reelection.
. Israeli police contradicted themselves a second time yesterday by saying the Arab American who drove his car into a crowd at a Jerusalem bus stop on killing a woman and injuring 23 people, did so deliberately. The man, Ahmed Hamida, was shot dead by Israeli settlers when he got out of the car.