Agence France Presse

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 8 January 2004 — Israel’s Army chief signaled yesterday that Syria could face further airstrikes like one carried out in October if it failed to rein in Palestinian militants within its borders.

Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon’s warning in comments broadcast on Army Radio came as Israel indicated it was testing whether Syrian President Bashar Assad was truly interested in resuming peace talks. On Oct. 5, Israel struck what it said was a militant training camp deep in Syrian territory after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 23 people in a restaurant in the Israeli city of Haifa. Syria said Israel hit a civilian site.

Washington, Israel’s chief ally, has urged Assad to expel groups it has listed as terrorist organizations. Syria urged the United States last month to help revive peace talks with Israel that collapsed in 2000, but hopes dived after an Israeli Cabinet minister revealed a plan to expand Jewish settlements on the occupied Golan Heights.

Syria is seeking the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed in a move not recognized internationally.

Meanwhile, five Israeli soldiers began a yearlong jail sentence yesterday for refusing to serve in the Israeli Army on account of its occupation of the Palestinian territories, refusenik support group Yesh Gvul said.

The five, all aged around 20, began their sentence yesterday afternoon at “prison six”, a military jail near the northern Israeli town of Atlit. They were sentenced on Sunday by a military court in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, after the judges overruled as “politically motivated” their refusal to serve in the army on grounds of conscience.

Matan Kaminer, Noam Bahat, Shimri Tsameret, Adam Maor and Hagai Matar have already been on remand for a year, serving three months behind bars and another nine months in an open prison.

Alternative ME Peace Plan Gathers 250,000 Signatures

Meanwhile, organizers of an alternative Middle East peace plan said yesterday that more than 250,000 people had now signed a petition in favor of the blueprint after they met their target of 100,000 Palestinian names by the end of 2003.

The People’s Voice “realized its projected campaign goal of accumulating over 100,000 Palestinian endorsers by the end of 2003,” the group said in a statement. “In addition to the campaign’s growing number of Palestinian supporters, over 150,000 Israelis have signed the statement of principles.”

The People’s Voice is an Israeli-Palestinian initiative that was launched officially in July 2002, drafted by former chief of the Shin Bet interior security services Ami Ayalon and Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh.