Violence continues in Palestinian-Israeli conflict

JERUSALEM (AP)-With the peace process on ice, embattled Prime Minister Ehud Barak attempted yesterday to cobble together a coalition government that would include hard-liners and further diminish prospects for a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

Street clashes persisted yesterday, and Israeli security forces clamped down on Palestinian areas, closing the airport in the Gaza Strip and sealing off a West Bank town that has been the source of shooting on Gilo, a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Barak, who announced an indefinite "time-out" from the disintegrating peace process Sunday, turned his focus to salvaging his shrunken coalition before parliament returns from a three-month recess Sunday.

To keep his government from collapse and avoid early elections, Barak was wooing the leader of the right-wing opposition, Ariel Sharon - the man Palestinians blame for provoking the current spasm of violence. Barak and his negotiators met Sharon and planned additional talks today.

Meanwhile, the death count grew. Two Palestinian teen-agers died yesterday from head wounds suffered in earlier clashes in the West Bank town of Nablus, and a Hebron man died during a firefight on last night.

The deaths on the 26th day of fighting brought the overall toll to 124, all but eight of them Arabs. The clashes erupted after Sharon made a controversial Sept. 28 visit to the most contested religious shrine in Jerusalem, sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

Fighting raged for a second night on Jerusalem's periphery yesterday when Palestinian gunmen in Beit Jalla opened fire on the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo. Israeli police responded with machine-gun fire and tank shells. In a first, police ordered a "lights-out" for those Gilo homes facing Beit Jalla. Three Palestinians were slightly injured in the shelling.

The army also reported firefights at other friction points in the West Bank as well as a number of firebomb incidents. An Israeli soldier was wounded in one firebomb attack at Rachel's Tomb, an Israeli enclave in Bethlehem. Earlier, Palestinian stone throwers clashed with Israeli soldiers at two chronic trouble spots in the Gaza Strip, with 36 Palestinians wounded, according to hospital doctors.

"The situation is really deteriorating. The worst hasn't happened yet," said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator.

Brig. Gen. Benny Ganz, the commander in the West Bank, said that Israeli forces had yet to "lift the lid" in the response to the Beit Jalla shooting. "If we need something more drastic, we will know how to do this too," he said. He said he was still in touch with his Palestinian counterparts, but that he no longer trusted them to rein in the gunmen.

In the hills surrounding Hebron, residents said the Israeli army used tank shells against areas where gunmen had fired on the Jewish enclave in the city. One man died during the shelling, they said. The army denied using tanks in Hebron.

The regular use of Israeli tank fire would mark a serious escalation in the fighting, which until now has mostly been limited to gunfire exchanges.

Elsewhere, a police jeep traveling past the Rockefeller Museum junction outside Jerusalem's walled Old City was hit by a fire bomb. The jeep swerved into a telephone poll, and four troops were slightly injured.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, protesters spray-painted a donkey to resemble the blue-and-white Israeli flag and tied up the animal in a street where rock-throwers and soldiers clashed.

The protesters also meticulously painted the names of Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the donkey.

"I want to bring Barak down to the level of the donkey," said the artist, Khalid Mustafa, 20.

Mubarak has been criticized for playing host to a weekend Arab summit that condemned Israel for the recent violence but declined to take stronger action-disappointing many Palestinians.

With no letup in the confrontations, Israel tightened restrictions on several Palestinian areas.

The Israelis closed the Palestinian airport in Gaza City for the second time since the violence erupted, though Palestinian Airlines general director Salman Abu Halib said later in the evening that Israeli authorities told him he could reopen it.

After meeting yesterday, the Palestinian Cabinet called again for an international force to police the disputed areas, a proposal Israel has rejected out of hand.

Barak's decision to withdraw from the peace process, at least temporarily, has put on hold seven years of grinding negotiations with the Palestinians. With the current bitterness, there was little hope of holding new talks, let alone solving knotty long-term problems.

After Barak announced the suspension Sunday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said the Israeli leader could "go to hell."

Arafat has threatened in the past to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, and Israel has been considering a "unilateral separation" from the Palestinians that would include setting boundaries. The United States has urged both sides to refrain from unilateral actions.

The White House pledged yesterday to wage a diplomatic offensive to end the fighting, but sidestepped questions about Barak's call for a timeout in peace talks and Arafat's retort.

"We understand that there's a lot of frustration that's built up on both sides now," spokesman Jake Siewert said. "Our priority, our focus, now is on ending the bloodshed."

AP PHOTO

An Israeli solider is positioned near a mound of dirt as a tank is manned in front of apartment buildings in the Jerusalem Jewish neighborhood which borders the Palestinian town of Beit Jalla yesterday.