July 6, 2003	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 5,1424

GAZA, July 5: Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas met on Saturday for the first time with Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in an apparent bid to shore up a ceasefire vital to a US-backed Middle East peace plan.

Mr Abbas and Mr Yassin declined to speak to reporters after the 35-minute meeting at Yassin’s Gaza home. The talks were held against the backdrop of demands by the Palestinian Authority and militants for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Abbas’s Fatah faction declared a truce six days ago after pressure from the reformist prime minister.

But militants have said the ceasefire, shaken by sporadic attacks on Israeli targets in the West Bank and Gaza and Israel’s killing of a Palestinian in a raid on Thursday, could collapse unless all Palestinian prisoners went free.

Mr Abbas said this week he was seeking the release of thousands of prisoners held by Israel, calling the move crucial for the success of the truce and the peace plan.

Israel’s cabinet is to consider at its weekly meeting on Sunday releasing hundreds of prisoners, political sources said. But with an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 Palestinians in custody, that would do little to mollify militants.

PALESTINIAN KILLED IN GAZA BLAST: In another dent to the ceasefire, an explosion near an Israeli army checkpoint in the Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian but caused no Israeli casualties on Saturday.

Palestinian officials said two other Palestinians were wounded by the explosive device near Sufa checkpoint. It was not clear if it had been planted by the men caught up in the blast, which the Israeli army said occurred close to an Israeli patrol.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the explosion was caused by a device left by Israeli troops who had withdrawn from the area recently.

In an operation in support of the truce, Palestinian police raided a Gaza refugee camp late on Friday and exchanged fire with militants they came to arrest after anti-tank missile and mortar bomb attacks on Jewish settlements and Israeli soldiers.

A policeman, a militant and a bystander were wounded in the fighting in the Shati camp, witnesses said.

“Palestinian security forces have been given orders...not to tolerate (ceasefire) violators and to bring them to court,” Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said on Saturday.

Israel wants Abbas to go a step further and dismantle militant groups as mandated by the peace “road map” affirmed at a June 4 Middle East summit in the presence of US President George W. Bush.

Abbas fears an armed campaign against militant groups that have spearheaded a nearly three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood could lead to civil war.

Since the ceasefire was declared, Israel has pulled its troops back from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Bethlehem and freed some prisoners under the road map that charts a path to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.—Reuters