Ross fails to break deadlock over West Bank

Ross fails to break deadlock over West Bank

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Agencies): U.S. peace envoy Dennis Ross
has failed to break the impasse over a second Israeli withdrawal
from the West Bank scheduled to follow U.S. President Bill
Clinton's visit, Palestinian officials said on Wednesday.

"The meetings held yesterday did not produce the necessary
breakthrough between us and the Israeli side on the
implementation of the second withdrawal due under the Wye River
agreement," Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour told AFP.

Ross met on Tuesday with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and was expected
to return home following a second rounds of meetings with both
men on Wednesday.

Asfour said it was unlikely Ross could resolve the disputes
standing in the way of further implementation of the Wye River
land-for-security deal reached six weeks ago in Washington.

"I think it's unlikely in light of the Israeli intransigence
and double-dealing that he will be able to bridge the gap in the
coming days," said Asfour, minister without portfolio.

"I think the American president during his visit will strive
to arrive at a solution to the serious crisis caused by the
Israeli government, which wants to destroy the Wye River
agreement," he said.

Under the Wye deal, Israel carried out a first withdrawal from
two percent more of the West Bank land month and freed 250
Palestinian prisoners, mostly common criminals.

But last week Netanyahu said he would not order the second
phase of the pullback scheduled for Dec. 18 unless the
Palestinians halt a rash of violent protests over the past two
weeks and meet other conditions.

Most controversially Netanyahu has demanded that Palestinians
stop insisting Israel agreed at Wye to release prisoners "with
Israeli blood on their hands" and that Arafat retracts threats to
unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in May.

Clinton is due to arrive early on Sunday and will pay the
first visit by a U.S president to the Palestinian territories on
Monday.

Clinton is also due to give a speech to a joint session of the
Palestinian legislature and the Palestinian National Council in
Gaza which is due to vote on amendments to the Palestinian
national covenant.

In Hebron, West Bank, more than 55 Palestinians were hurt in
unrest on Wednesday, when protests and a general strike marked
the 11th anniversary of the Palestinian uprising, witnesses said.

The clashes, following violence on Monday in which 70
Palestinians were injured, cast a shadow over the Clinton's
scheduled visit on Dec.12-15 to Israel and Palestinian-ruled
areas.

Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli soldiers and cars on roads
around West Bank towns and Jewish settlements in violence
reminiscent of the intifada that began in 1987 and largely died
out after the Oslo interim peace deal in 1993.

At least 27 protesters were wounded, five of them seriously,
from rubber-coated bullets fired by Israeli soldiers during
clashes in Bethlehem, witnesses said.

Another 10 were hurt in protests near Ramallah and some 19
Palestinians were injured elsewhere in the West Bank. The army
said an Israeli woman motorist was slightly injured by a rock
thrown by Palestinians.

Palestinian businesses and schools were closed to commemorate
the uprising and to protest at Israel's refusal to release
Palestinian security prisoners under the Wye River land-for-
security deal brokered by Clinton.

The militant Moslem group Hamas said in a statement its
founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, under house arrest in Gaza, had
begun a hunger strike to affirm the "sacred right" of the
movement's detainees "to freedom and dignity".