MIDEAST: Ceasefire Likely to Survive Attacks

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Hirschberg

JERUSALEM, Aug 12 2003 (IPS) - In the first major rupture of a truce declared several weeks ago by Palestinian militants, two suicide bombers blew themselves up Tuesday in separate attacks in a town in Israel and near a settlement in the West Bank, killing two Israelis. Initial indications, though, were that the ceasefire would not unravel altogether.

In the first attack Tuesday morning, in which one person was killed and ten were injured, a bomber carrying an explosive device in his backpack blew himself up near the entrance to a pharmacy in Rosh Ha’ayin town located close to Israel’s border with the West Bank.

Within an hour another suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt strapped to his body, near several Israeli youths at a bus stop at the entrance to the West Bank settlement Ariel, killing one and injuring three.

The radical Hamas group claimed responsibility for the attack at Ariel, while the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia associated with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, claimed the bombing at Rosh Ha’ayin. Israel said the bombers, both of whom were killed when they detonated their explosives, were from the Askar refugee camp near the West Bank city Nablus.

Israel responded immediately, freezing the release of some 70 Palestinians from Israeli jails who were already aboard buses taking them to drop-off points in the occupied territories as part of an Israeli confidence-building gesture. But it looked unlikely that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would order the military to launch a major retaliatory strike.

He did warn, however, that there would be no progress on the diplomatic front as long as attacks continued. For the first time, he launched a harsh personal attack on his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, saying the attacks had taken place because of his failure to dismantle militant groups, as the U.S.- backed road map peace plan requires him to do.

Abbas condemned the attacks, but said Israel’s continuing raids across the West Bank had provoked the bombings. "I condemn the two attacks against Israelis and I also condemn the recurring Israeli provocations," he said before departing Qatar as he cut short his tour of the Gulf.

Despite pressure from Israel and the U.S., Abbas has publicly stated he will not resort to force in confronting militant groups like Hamas, for fear it will precipitate civil war.

The suicide attacks did not come as a major surprise. While the hudna (temporary truce) declared by militant groups on June 29 has dramatically decreased violence, it has never been watertight. Palestinian gunmen have continued to fire sporadically at Israeli troops and civilian vehicles in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Last week an Israeli woman was killed and her three children injured when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car as they drove to their home in the West Bank settlement Har Gilo.

Despite the truce, Israel has continued its military activity throughout the West Bank, arresting dozens of militants in night raids. Last Friday, two senior Hamas activists and an Israeli soldier were killed when the army launched a raid into the Askar refugee camp.

Hamas leaders vowed to avenge the deaths. They acted on that pledge in Ariel Tuesday.

Ever since the truce went into effect and the two sides tentatively began implementing some of the clauses in the first phase of the road map, the U.S. has been concerned about ongoing Israeli activity in the West Bank. Israel has not handed over security control like it has in Gaza, and there have been fears that this would result in Palestinian retaliatory actions.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice asked Israeli leaders to exercise restraint in the West Bank. But Israel has said it will continue to act in the absence of a determined effort by the Palestinian Authority to root out militant groups.

The truce has been punctured, but it has not yet been shattered. Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders said Tuesday they were abiding by it, although they added they would continue to respond to specific Israeli actions that harmed their members in the territories. "Palestinian factions have not called an end to the truce but they have the right to respond to violations by Israel with similar violations," said Abdallah al-Shami, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza.

Israeli military officials contend that Hamas and Islamic Jihad want to prolong the ceasefire because it has given them the opportunity to reorganise and re- arm. "Hamas is readying itself for the day the hudna ends," Reuven Paz, an expert in Islamic movements at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya near Tel Aviv told IPS. "When it does, it will not only carry out suicide attacks, but will also use the longer-range rockets it has been developing." Prior to the truce, Hamas often responded to Israeli actions in Gaza by firing rudimentary rockets at towns in southern Israel close to the Gaza Strip.

Paz is not optimistic about the long-term future of the truce. The most it can provide, he says, is "a period of quiet" punctuated by attacks by militant groups carried out in response to Israeli actions.

With the road map peace plan just about limping along, the truce has come under increasing strain. Abbas faces pressure to extract concessions from Israel. If they are not forthcoming, and the process becomes increasingly bogged down, support for his government – and the truce – will erode further.

Sharon, by contrast, faces little public pressure at home to make any major concessions, or to respond to the attacks, especially if the number of casualties remains low, as was the case on Tuesday. He is also aware that a major retaliatory strike will annoy the U.S.

"What we have now is a very static situation and I can’t quite see how we are going to get out of it," says Paz. "The American president is on vacation and so I don’t expect Washington to be very active in the coming weeks."

The truce, however, does have one very powerful ally – the many Israelis and Palestinians who have tired of the conflict and have welcomed the respite of recent weeks.