Militants’ bodies sent home by Israelis

ISRAEL handed over the remains of 15 militants shot dead during attempted attacks in the Gaza Strip as part of a series of goodwill gestures towards the Palestinians.

However the fatal shooting of a Palestinian in the West Bank highlighted the fragile nature of the tentative peace process between the two sides.

The bodies were handed over at the main Erez crossing point between Israel and Gaza after being transported from the Israeli forensic medical unit near Tel Aviv.

Seven were members of the radical Islamist organisation Hamas, while the others belonged to various other armed factions.

After their arrival at Erez, the bodies were placed on board 15 ambulances which took them in a convoy to the Gaza headquarters of the Palestinian parliament for a ceremony celebrating their “martyrdom” before their burials.

Around a thousand people, including parents of the dead men as well as armed militants waving flags of the different Palestinian factions, were at Erez for the arrival of the bodies.

Abdallah Omar, whose son Yussef was killed on September 23 in a raid on a settlement in southern Gaza in which three soldiers were killed, said that it was a bittersweet day. “It is sad but we are relieved that we will now be able to bury him and visit his tomb when we want,” he said.

The release of the bodies was the latest in a series of confidence-building which included a decision on Sunday to release 500 Palestinian prisoners.

In a further goodwill gesture, the Israeli army is expected to transfer responsibility for security in the Jericho area of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority as early as today.

The transfer forms part of an agreement reached at last week’s landmark Middle East summit in Egypt.

Israeli soldiers rarely operate in the sleepy Jordan Valley town so the transfer is mainly of symbolic value although it will serve as a trial run for similar transfers in four other areas, including Ramallah which serves as the political capital of the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with the New York Times that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was now speaking “a different language” and even acknowledged the political pressures that Mr Sharon is facing from his own right-wingers.

The Israeli leader’s determination to withdraw from the Gaza Strip later this year despite “how much pressure is on him from the Israeli Likud (Mr Sharon’s party) rightists is a good sign to start with” on the road to peace, he said.

“And now he has a partner,” Mr Abbas added.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops yesterday close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the southern West Bank town of Hebron.

The army said that he had been shot after trying to attack a soldier with a knife although Palestinian witnesses said that he was first shot by the driver of an army bulldozer and then by another two soldiers.