NEW YORK, 15 February 2005 — War with Israel will be over “when the Israelis declare that they will comply” with the agreement made at Sharm El-Sheikh last week, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview published here yesterday.
In a 40-minute talk with the New York Times in his Gaza office late Saturday, Abbas spoke “with surprising optimism” about the prospects for peace after he and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared an end to hostilities, at their first meeting in Egypt last Tuesday.
War will end “when the Israelis declare that they will comply with the agreement I made in Sharm El-Sheikh, and today our comrades in Hamas and Jihad said they are committed to the truce, the cooling down of the whole situation,” Abbas said.
“I believe we will start a new era,” he added. Sharon is now speaking “a different language” to the Palestinians, Abbas said, calling Sharon’s commitment to withdraw from Gaza, dismantle all Israeli settlements there and four in the West Bank “a good sign to start with.”
He said Sharon also offered to discuss release of Palestinian prisoners held since before the 1993 Oslo accords.
“Prisoners, prisoners are our priority, and we told everyone about it,” Abbas said. “The situation will be stabilized and will cool down in Gaza and the West Bank” to the degree that Israel “helps us to release the prisoners.” Israel on Sunday approved the release of some 500 Palestinian prisoners in a bid to bolster Abbas as he tries to persuade militants to observe the truce.
Hamas made a commitment to run in July elections, continuing its “conversion into a political party,” the Palestinian leader told the Times.
“Any war will have an end. And what is the end? To sit around the table and talk. And they realize that this is the time to come to the table and talk and negotiate,” he said of the armed groups.
“Now Hamas and Jihad are running for the elections, and what does it mean? It means that they will be converted in time into political parties.” Abbas said he had fired nine senior police and security officials in Gaza and was prepared to fire more if they do not enforce the cease-fire.
And while prisoner release is a priority, he wants to move quickly on to the road map, an internationally conceived blueprint for tackling divisive issues and achieving peace. He said he would reject the road map’s option of declaring a sovereign Palestinian state with temporary borders before a final settlement is reached. Palestinians will see it as a trap, he said.
“So it’s better for us and for the Israelis to go directly to final status,” Abbas said. “I told Mr. Sharon that it’s better for both sides to establish this back channel to deal with final status and to go in parallel with the stages of the road map.”
Sharon didn’t respond, Abbas said with a laugh. “Maybe he didn’t like it. We have to repeat it more and more in our ongoing negotiations.”
In another development, Israeli troops shot and fatally wounded a Palestinian near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the southern West Bank town of Hebron yesterday, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.
A military spokeswoman said that the Palestinian was shot after he had tried to stab a soldier.
“An attacker came and attempted to stab a soldier very close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs,” the spokeswoman told AFP. “He failed and they managed to shoot him.”
The Palestinian died shortly after being shot, a military source added.
Meanwhile, families of 15 Palestinians who were killed by Israeli troops several months ago were finally given a chance to bury their loved ones when the bodies were returned to the Gaza Strip yesterday.
The bodies of the victims were handed over at the main Erez crossing point between Israel and the territory after being transported from the Israeli forensic medical unit at Abu Kabir, near Tel Aviv.
Palestinian sources said the 15 had all been killed between Sept. 23 and Oct. 6 of last year. Seven were members of the Hamas, while the others belonged to various other armed factions. At Erez, the bodies were placed on board 15 Palestinian ambulances which took them in a convoy to the Gaza headquarters of the Palestinian parliament for a ceremony celebrating their “martyrdom” before burial.
