Israeli chief points finger at Authority

JERUSALEM - Israel's Army chief says Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority is becoming a "terrorist entity" and blames it for the escalation of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The charge by Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz was the latest salvo in an angry row over the five-month-old Palestinian uprising in which more than 400 people have been killed, most of them Palestinians.

"The terror against us is not only by Palestinian opposition elements but also by the big involvement of the official elements," Mofaz said in a speech. A senior Arafat aide dismissed the allegation as baseless.

At least 334 Palestinians, 61 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed in the Palestinian intifada (uprising) against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

More violence broke out yesterday. Palestinian gunmen shot at a car with Israeli licence plates carrying Palestinians near the Pisgat Zeev settlement on the outskirts of Jerusalem, wounding a girl.

A 2kg bomb found in a main Tel Aviv street was detonated by the police. A 5-year-old was shot in the leg outside her school in the mostly Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen fought near the Egyptian border.





On the political front, Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon courted rightist and religious parties for a unity government, pledging to curb the Palestinian uprising that erupted in September after he visited a hotly contested Jerusalem shrine.

Mofaz said that senior Palestinian security officials, including members of the security branch of Arafat's Fatah faction, were involved in promoting and directing attacks on Israelis.

"They are clearly the operational arms of the Authority's leadership and Arafat himself. The implication is that the Authority is being converted into a terrorist entity.

"It is important to mention that we feel in the last four weeks there is an escalation in the situation and in the terrorism," Mofaz added.

The period includes the end of the election campaign and the February 6 vote in which Israelis chose the hawkish Sharon, a former general hated by Arabs, as Prime Minister.

Arafat aide Ahmet Abdel-Rahman said Mofaz's allegations against Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were baseless.

"He wants to use these accusations to cover his crime and aggressions and his future plans against the Palestinian people," Abdel-Rahman said.

Arafat held talks in Cairo yesterday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to prepare for an Arab summit in Amman in four weeks and to discuss this week's Middle East mission by United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The talks also covered the government likely to be formed by Sharon, said Saeb Erekat, a senior Arafat aide. According to Egypt's Middle East News Agency, Erekat voiced concern that Sharon's Government would expand Jewish settlements.



Ehud Olmert, negotiator for Sharon's right-wing Likud party, said he hoped to resolve wrangling over cabinet posts and expected to shape a government by the end of the week.

This would be well before a deadline late this month which Sharon must meet under law or face a general election.

The centre-left Labour Party has agreed to join a unity government based on a platform of territorial compromise for peace and honouring previous accords with the Palestinians.

Labour's Central Committee is to vote tomorrow to pick eight party members who will serve as ministers in Sharon's cabinet. Nobel peace laureate and former Prime Minister Shimon Peres is widely expected to become foreign minister.

- REUTERS

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