Peace in jeopardy again as Israeli stabbed to death

A PALESTINIAN attacker stabbed a man to death and wounded another in Tel Aviv yesterday in what police said was the first terror attack in an Israeli city since militant groups declared a truce June 29. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom warned the Palestinians were running out of time to crack down on the militants.

“There was a kind of quiet understanding they would have three weeks or so to get organised,” Shalom told Army Radio. “Those three weeks end this weekend. There have been a few signs of activity but there’s not the sort of action that’s required,” he said.

Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said Palestinian authorities “will continue our efforts to contain these acts and to put an end to these acts”. He said the truce would hold.

Palestinian leaders, meanwhile, said they settled a rift that jeopardised peace efforts. Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas had threatened to resign unless Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement backed his handling of contacts with Israel. The two met late Monday and organisers said they resolved their differences.

The US and Israel hope Mr Abbas can lead the Palestinians in efforts to implement the internationally-sponsored road map peace plan that would end 33 months of violence and create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza by 2005.

The Tel Aviv attack came hours after the Arafat-Abbas meeting. After the meeting but before the attack, Abbas pledged to enforce the ceasefire agreed to by the three main Palestinian militant groups. The Palestinian, armed with a knife, tried to enter the Tarabin restaurant along the seacoast in south Tel Aviv around 2am, said police spokesman Gil Kleiman. He struggled with a security guard and stabbed him in the neck, he said.

Customers threw chairs at him and he fled along the promenade with the guard and owner in pursuit. He then stabbed a man before a passer-by shot him in the legs, Kleiman said.