Sharon Cuts
Links To Abbas
By Donald Macintyre
15 January 2005
The
Independent
The
Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, ordered a halt to all contacts
with the Palestinian Authority yesterday after the bombing and shooting
attack in Gaza which killed six Israeli terminal workers and three Palestinians.
Mr Sharon's office said Palestinian security personnel had been involved.
The tough new move
will overshadow the inauguration of Mahmoud Abbas as the new Palestinian
President in Ramallah today.
Israeli officials
said the bar on contacts, after the pace of conflict quickened since
Mr Abbas's election last Sunday, would stay until the Palestinian President
took decisive action to halt attacks. The move immediately puts on hold
Mr Sharon and Mr Abbas's relatively cordial agreement to remain in contact
and meet in what the Israeli Prime Minister told his cabinet on Tuesday
would be "the near future".
Thursday night's
attack at Karni, the main crossing-point for cargo and aid between Gaza
and Israel, along with Israel's unequivocally sharp response, significantly
raise the stakes of Mr Abbas's stated intention to try to secure a ceasefire
by the armed factions as a prelude to restarting the peace process.
Dov Weisglass, Mr
Sharon's most senior adviser, yesterday conveyed Israel's response to
Elliott Abrahams, President George Bush's national security adviser
for the Middle East, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Tony Blair's foreign affairs
adviser, and Javier Solana, the EU's policy chief.
A senior official
in Mr Sharon's office said last night: "There is nothing personal
about this and we have been very helpful since [President Yasser] Arafat's
death. But the Prime Minister is saying that we cannot talk to the Palestinians
until something is done."
Israel would require
action and not just words against the militants, he said: "Palestinian
security organisations were involved. This was not just any suicide
attack. Everybody knows who is responsible."
Israel effectively
closed the Gaza Strip yesterday, imposingrestrictions on movement in
and out of the Gaza's three crossing-points, including Karni, in what
local media had reported was a decision to enforce a lockdown until
the Palestinian leadership took steps to halt violence. Mr Abbas, who
has said he is seeking a ceasefire by the armed factions, said yesterday
afternoon: "These attacks and what Israel did last week by killing
nine Palestinians do not benefit peace."
In the northern
Gaza districts of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya, several thousand demonstrators,
some carrying green Islamic flags, took to the streets in a "victory
march" organised by the armed factions.
In a joint statement,
Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committee and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade,
declared: "We will continue to chase you and disrupt your sleep
until you leave the land you occupied," the militant groups said
in a statement. "[The attack] affirms the consensus of the resistance
factions on the choice of Jihad."
Last night Tzipi
Livni, the recently appointed justice minister and a Likud politician
who is close to Mr Sharon, said: "We must try to strengthen [Mr
Abbas] as a leader, assuming that at some time or other he will be able
take control of the terror organisations."
Three Palestinian
militants were also killed in the gunfight after the attack. The militants
had used a bomb weighing more than 100kg to blast open a door between
the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the crossing.