Palestinians divided over US security plan

Ramallah (West Bank), May 6: Palestinian leaders are divided over a new US plan that aims to bolster prospects for renewed peace talks with Israel by setting dates for both sides to take confidence-building steps.

Hamas, which leads a Palestinian unity government, has flatly rejected the plan, which asks President Mahmoud Abbas to start deploying his Fatah-dominated forces by mid-June to halt rocket fire and smuggling by Gaza militants.

But Abbas's aides said he was willing to work with the US plan, albeit with some amendments. ''We want it to be implemented.

We hope to see the Israelis implement it,'' Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Abbas, said today.

The different positions again expose the tensions between Abbas' secular Fatah faction and ruling Hamas Islamists, less than two months after they formed a unity government in a bid to end infighting.

The Israeli response to the U.S. plan has been mixed.

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the government could not commit itself to meeting some of the so-called ''benchmarks'' for security reasons.

''It is a proposal. It's a positive initiative. We'll study it in depth,'' the aide said.

According to the US document, Washington is asking Israel to take specific steps to ease the movement of people and goods between the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

BUS CONVOYS

Israeli officials singled out as particularly problematic a US demand that Israel allow Palestinian bus convoys to travel between Gaza and the West Bank by July 1.

Top Israeli security officials will discuss the plan in greater detail this week with Olmert, who is fighting for his political life following the release of an official report sharply criticising his handling of last year's war in Lebanon.

Though the US plan includes set dates for both sides to take specific actions, the US State Department said on Friday that these did not constitute ''fixed deadlines''.

Erekat said Abbas would discuss the US timeline with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, during talks in the Gaza Strip today.

''We have accepted these ideas in the past, the only thing that's new about it is the introduction of timelines,'' Erekat told Reuters.

But Hamas has shown no flexibility towards a plan that the group sees as part of an American effort to strengthen Abbas's forces.

''The American plan is rejected and we will work to make it fail by any means,'' said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Baroum.

Abbas has been trying to extend a shaky Gaza ceasefire and stop rocket attacks against Israel by Palestinian factions in a bid to start serious peace talks.

Yesterday, Abbas's forces discovered a tunnel under Gaza's border with Egypt in what a top security official said was the start of a stepped-up campaign against smuggling.

Palestinian groups, including elements of Hamas and Fatah, use tunnels to transport arms.

REUTERS

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