UNITED STATES URGED ISRAEL TO END INCURSIONS INSIDE PA
WASHINGTON 22 Oct. (IPS) The United States called on Israel to withdraw its troops at once from all autonomous Palestinian areas as news of the killing of a Hamas activist in the West Bank emerged.
"Israel Defence Forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas and no further such incursions should be made, US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker warned Monday".
He said Israeli actions had contributed to a significant escalation in tension and violence in the region.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had repeated that Israeli forces would withdraw from positions inside Palestinian controlled areas only when the Palestinian Authority had outlawed militant groups and handed over those responsible for the assassination, last week, of Israel's hard-line Tourism Minister, Rehavam Ze’evi.
A senior member of the armed wing of the militant Islamic group was killed in an explosion, which Hamas officials blame on Israel.
The extremist Islamist organisation said the victim of the explosion, Ayman Halaweh, 26, had been a "commander" in the group's military wing, Izz el-Din al-Qassam, and one of its top bomb-makers, they said.
Reeker said Israeli forces should be withdrawn immediately, and that no further incursions should be made.
He also urged the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to arrest those responsible for last week's assassination of the Israeli tourism minister and to move decisively against those planning further acts of terror.
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, is to meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Arafat, during a meeting in Gaza with envoys from the US, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, who urged him to enforce the battered ceasefire agreement with Israel, had earlier called for President George Bush to put pressure on Israel to withdraw its tanks. ENDS ISRAEL PALESTINE ESCALATION 221001