Nazir Majally • Asharq Al-Awsat

TEL AVIV, 16 June 2003 — Talks for an end to violence and the implementation of a peace road map continued for a second day yesterday between Israel and the Palestinians. Officials said a deal was shaping up for an Israeli troop withdrawal from the northern Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Bethlehem in exchange for a Palestinian Authority pledge to assume security control of the two areas and rein in militants. Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said details would be discussed at a meeting later between Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad and Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, a follow-up to talks the two held on Saturday.

US President George W. Bush’s envoy, veteran diplomat John Wolf, met Israeli domestic security chief Avi Dichter and Dov Weisglass, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on Saturday. And Egyptian security officials traveled to Gaza in a bid to persuade Palestinian hard-liners to resume talks with Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on a deal to end attacks on Israelis. Bush said the world must “deal harshly” with Hamas and a leading Republican senator said US troops may have to go after them. “The free world and those who love freedom and peace must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers,” Bush told reporters at Kennebunkport, Maine, when asked whether Israel was justified in recent attacks against the group. “That’s just the way it is in the Middle East,” he said as he left Sunday services at First Congregational Church in the town. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “clearly, if force is required ultimately to root out terrorism, it is possible there would be American participation.” Asked if that meant such troops would go after Hamas or other groups, he said, “That may be the conclusion.”