| Palestinians accuse Israel of plotting to assassinate Fatah member 04/13/2001 Associated Press JERUSALEM – Palestinians today blamed Israel for the botched attempt to kill a leading member of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and said they arrested suspected informers who delivered a booby-trapped car to the intended victim.
The Israeli army said it knew nothing about the rigged car. Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the accusations "are not worth responding to."
Sharon, meanwhile, reiterated that he will not meet with Arafat until Palestinian attacks on Israelis stop.
"The turning point will come when Arafat begins to realize, and I believe that this is becoming clear to him, that my government will not negotiate under terror and violence," Sharon told the Maariv daily.
Sharon also said he would be ready to recognize a demilitarized Palestinian state in up to 42 percent of the West Bank as part of a long-term interim peace agreement. The Palestinians now have full or partial control over about 40 percent of the area.
The Palestinians want to establish a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as traditionally Arab east Jerusalem. Sharon's predecessor, Ehud Barak, had offered to transfer some 95 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians in a peace deal.
The car bomb's intended target was Nasser Abu Humaid, a leader of Fatah's armed wing, Tanzim, said Jibril Rajoub, a Palestinian security chief. The site was the Ammari refugee camp south of the West Bank town of Ramallah.
Abu Humaid said two men befriended him and offered him a car. He said he became suspicious and called security agents, who discovered the bomb. They towed it to a safe location, where it exploded. Abu Humaid said the two men were collaborators working for Israel.
Rajoub angrily complained that the car bomb attempt came a day after Israeli and Palestinian security commanders met to try to defuse tensions. He said the two men who delivered the vehicle have been arrested.
"This shows how serious the Israeli government is about security coordination, and how much it cares for Palestinian lives," Rajoub told the Voice of Palestine radio Friday. "This is an Israeli invitation for a car bomb in Tel Aviv."
Ziad Abu Zayyad, a Palestinian Cabinet minister, told Israel army radio Friday that the botched assassination attempt "is pushing the Palestinians toward extremism and escalation."
Since hostilities erupted on Sept. 28, Israel has targeted and killed at least 15 activists, Palestinians say. Israel has acknowledged some of the attacks and refused to comment on others.
Abu Humaid planned attacks on Jewish settlers and fired at the settlement of Psagot next to Ramallah, Palestinians said.
In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy Thursday night on a main West Bank road at the village of Beit Umar, north of Hebron. Palestinians said there were no clashes, but the Israeli military said soldiers shot at someone trying to throw a firebomb at a civilian bus, setting off an exchange of gunfire.
Overall, 469 people have been killed in the conflict, including 386 Palestinians, 64 Israeli Jews and 19 others.
The 15-member European Union, meanwhile, issued a statement Friday from Stockholm urging Israelis and Palestinians to halt the "dangerous and dramatic escalation of violence" in the Middle East. Japan also urged the two sides to show "maximum self-restraint" to quell hostilities.
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