AL QUDS, May 12: US Secretary of State Colin Powell ended his peacemaking visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories empty-handed on Monday, with Israel still challenging the roadmap and all signs of hope dashed by continued violence.

Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, which the Israeli army completely sealed only a day after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced measures to alleviate pressure on the Palestinians.

In talks with Powell, Sharon refused to order even a freeze on development of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, let alone dismantling them.

While Powell urged the Palestinians to take rapid and “decisive” action against its radical militants when he met Abbas in Jericho on Sunday, he avoided discussing the issue of Israeli settlement activity.

Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath told Egyptian radio that Powell’s visit “has led to nothing new on the Israeli-Palestinian track ... because of Ariel Sharon’s refusal to give a frank or even tacit acceptance of the roadmap.

“Everything has been postponed until after Sharon returns from his visit to Washington on May 20,” said Shaath, who attended Sunday’s talks between Powell and Abbas.

The moderate Palestinian premier warned against double standards in the implementation of the roadmap and urged Israel to accept the plan and immediately stop all settlement activity.

But Sharon made it clear he would not budge and said settlements had to be allowed to “naturally expand”.

“Our finest youth live there,” he said. “What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?”, he testily asked Powell.

It is expected that Sharon will discuss the issue of dismantling settlement outposts in the West Bank during his visit to Washington.

Powell admitted in an interview with Israeli television on Sunday night that settlements were “a problem” just after hailing Israel’s position on the roadmap as “very promising”.

Powell, who traveled to Egypt and then Jordan on Monday, played down Israel’s refusal to officially accept the roadmap and insisted the priority was for both sides to move quickly on the smaller steps.

“What makes a difference is whether or not both sides find enough in common with the roadmap that they can begin the process of moving down the road,” Powell told reporters in Cairo.

Two militants from an armed Fatah offshoot were killed during an Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early Monday and a teenager was also shot dead by soldiers guarding a Jewish settlement in southern Gaza.

“It simply means that Israel has no intention of implementing the roadmap,” Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat told AFP.—AFP