Palestinian prime minister fails in negotiating with militants

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas failed on Tuesday to persuade militant groups to end attacks on Israelis. Just after their meeting, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a car and killed an Israeli child.

A 7-year-old girl was killed and a 5-year-old girl was seriously wounded in the shooting on a highway just inside Israel, close to the West Bank town of Qalqiliya. Army Radio said the gunfire came from the West Bank. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Israeli government official Zalman Shoval said the shooting showed that alongside peace efforts, "our own battle with the terrorists will have to continue."

Violent Palestinian groups have so far refused to halt attacks, despite tremendous Palestinian, Egyptian, and international pressure backed up by the prospect of a serious Israeli campaign to wipe the militants out. A deal would apparently require Israel to commit to ending killings of militant leaders.

Such an agreement could reportedly include the release of uprising leader Marwan Barghouti -- a Fatah leader perhaps second only to Arafat in popularity among Palestinians. But some Israeli officials dismissed that as a possibility.

Talks to continue

Abbas' three-hour meeting with leaders of militant groups produced no truce accord, but there was agreement to continue the talks. Ismail Abu Shanab of Hamas said Hamas leaders "are still discussing this subject within the movement and have not yet made a final decision."

He said Abbas also suggested a broad Palestinian leadership including the militant movements.

Israel TV reported Tuesday that Israel would accept a cease-fire of three to six weeks. Israel officials were not available comment. Israeli officials have been warning that a brief cease-fire would only allow the militant groups to rearm and plan further attacks.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader, said the group was only considering an end to attacks on Israeli civilians inside Israel, and would keep targeting soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.

The militants also demand that Israel stop other military strikes, release prisoners and withdraw to positions held before the outbreak of fighting in September 2000.

Israel has said it would continue its offensive against Hamas and has reacted with suspicion to Abbas' idea of a long-term cease-fire.

Israeli officials are demanding Abbas crack down on the groups. Abbas has said he will not use force against the militants for fear of triggering civil war.

Secretary of State Colin Powell was to travel to Israel on Friday. Speaking en route to Cambodia, he lent support to Israel's demand for a crackdown.

Ultimately, Hamas and other terrorist organizations "will not only have to stop these terrorist attacks. We have to eliminate their capability to do so," he said. "We have to come down hard on organizations such as Hamas."

Abbas' meeting with leaders of all the Palestinian militant factions Tuesday was part of an international push for an agreement to end the violence. In recent days, Egyptian mediators traveled to Gaza to try to persuade the militants to lay down their arms.

"Maybe, after 24 hours, there will be positive results," Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said in Cairo on Tuesday.

As part of the road map, which envisions creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, Israel must take down settlement outposts in the West Bank and halt attacks "undermining trust" with the Palestinians.

But a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Israeli helicopter strikes in Gaza and other violence have left the road map's future in doubt two weeks after it was launched by President Bush at a summit in Jordan.

John Wolf, a U.S. envoy sent in with a team of monitors to supervise the road map's implementation, met Tuesday with Abbas.

Israeli officials said they offered to withdraw their forces from most of the Gaza Strip and at least one West Bank town control. But a senior Palestinian security source said Israel's withdrawal plan consisted of nothing more than moving a few tanks out of the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

Earlier Tuesday, Arafat told Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, that Israel would release Barghouti in the next two days, she said.

Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein wrote that it would be "inconceivable" to free Barghouti, whom he called a "first-rate architect of terrorism," before the end of his trial. Israel's foreign minister denied that Barghouti's release was being considered.

Over the years, Israel has freed hundreds of militants -- some in exchange for its own prisoners and some in the context of peace agreements. In 1997, Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin was traded for a pair of Israeli operatives.

Violence continued Tuesday, with clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the Balata and Askar refugee camps in the West Bank. A 14-year-old Palestinian was shot in the leg with live bullets in Balata, and an Associated Press photographer was lightly injured by rubber bullets.