Arafat must take decisive steps say Israelis

Despite US pressure to enable Yasser Arafat to join this week’s crucial Arab summit, Israel will not lift the travel ban on the Palestinian leader unless he takes decisive steps against militants, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said today.

Israel will make its decision by tomorrow, the day before the summit, said Raanan Gissin. After another round of truce talks ended without result last night, Arafat’s trip appeared increasingly in doubt.

At the summit, Arab leaders were to discuss a Saudi plan which offers an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict, in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the territories occupied in the 1967 war.

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said the chances of Arafat attending were slim.

The US wants Arafat to go to the summit, and a US official today said Washington has asked the Israeli government to lift the four month travel ban.

However, Sharon has said he would only do so if a truce was reached first.

Gissin, the Sharon adviser, said Arafat would have to make a real effort in the coming days to rein in militants.

‘‘The Cabinet has made a decision that Arafat will be able to go any place he wants only when he takes action to fight terrorism,’’ Gissin said. ‘‘That is something that one cannot give up.’’

A senior Israeli Defence Ministry official meanwhile denied a report in The Washington Post that the Israeli military was preparing a large scale offensive in Palestinian towns and refugee camps should the ceasefire talks break down.

‘‘There are no such preparations,’’ said Yarden Vatikai.

The newspaper also said that if Israel did take broader military action after all attempts to negotiate a ceasefire failed, it would win a sympathetic ear in Washington.

A US official in the region agreed, saying that the Bush administration has a record of support for Sharon’s tough line and that it would not be surprising if that approach was maintained.

Palestinian officials said Arafat is seeking US guarantees that he will be able to return to the Palestinian areas if he can visit the summit, and will not be kept out by Israel.

Some Israeli Cabinet ministers have demanded Sharon not allow Arafat to return. Sharon was to meet key Cabinet ministers later today to decide on Arafat’s travel plans.

Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of the moderate Labour party favour lifting the travel ban, while members of Sharon’s hawkish Likud party oppose the idea.

US-sponsored ceasefire talks, meanwhile, ended without agreement late yesterday. US peace envoy Anthony Zinni presented compromise proposals to which Israelis and Palestinians were to respond in another session today.

It was the first time Zinni has formally stepped into the dispute. In 11 days of talks, he has urged both sides to agree on implementing a truce plan negotiated by CIA director George Tenet last June.

Israel and the Palestinians have accepted the plan, but in the current talks, they have tried to improve their positions, making conflicting demands.

In new violence today, a 19-year-old Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire during an incursion into the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli military said soldiers were looking for tunnels used for smuggling weapons across the border and returned fire when Palestinians attacked with a bomb, grenades and gunfire.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen traded fire today.

Yesterday, two Israeli motorists were killed in Palestinian shooting ambushes in the West Bank, and five Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including three men who the military says were planting a bomb next to a Jewish settlement.

Also yesterday, four gunmen who infiltrated Israel from Jordan were killed by Israeli troops after an extended search. Two other members of the squad were killed by Jordanian security forces. It was not immediately clear whether the infiltrators were Palestinians.