Arabic/Nat
XFA
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said on Thursday that he hopes the peace talks with Israel will continue and an agreement will be achieved between the two sides.
Arafat spoke after returning to Gaza from Cairo, where he met yesterday with Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami.
Ben-Ami was already in Cairo Wednesday when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak suggested that he see Arafat there.
Arafat flew to Cairo and they met there for two hours.
Both sides said after the meeting that they were considering the prospects of reaching a new agreement.
The Palestinians, disappointed by American President Bill Clinton's proposal, are still hoping to hear new ideas from the Israelis.
Martin Indyk, the U-S ambassador in Israel, expressed his disappointment on Thursday regarding the Palestinian reaction to the American proposal.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Indyk called it a shame that Palestinian leaders and spokesmen have not been able to stand before their people and ask them to stop the violence.
Indyk said that the Americans expected Arafat to try to convince his people that even though he understands their anger, the peace proposal served their interests and met their objectives in the peace process.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank City of Bethlehem, Palestinians held a march in support of the executing of fellow Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Dozens of armed and masked Fatah members led the march that started at Manger Square in the city.
The marchers chanted "Death to Collaborators" and called on the Palestinian authority to execute all Palestinians held in prisons for collaborating with Israel.
At least six Palestinians have been killed as suspected collaborators, two of them were executed by Palestinian police.
In Balata refugee camp, near Nablus, hundreds of Palestinians held a rally to protest the idea of resettling Palestinian refugees in foreign countries such as Canada and Australia.
Masked men marched in the streets of the refugee camp, shooting in the air and chanting against the settling of refugees outside Israel.
The issue of the Palestinian refugees is one of the main key issues in the Palestinian Israeli ongoing conflict.
Clinton's proposals suggested that the Palestinians receive sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, as well as a disputed holy site sacred to both Muslims and Jews, where the Al Aqsa Mosque compound sits atop the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples.
In return, the Palestinians would scale back their demand that all refugees and their descendants, about 4 million people, have the right to move back to their old homes in Israel, a country of 5 million Jews.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has said he would never agree to the "right of return" for the Palestinian refugees.
Paying the ultimate tribute, Yasser Arafat helped carry the coffin of his protege, the Palestinian TV chief, Hisham Mikki, who was gunned down by masked men in a Gaza City hotel.
The Palestinian Authority said in a statement that Mikki was a "martyr" and that he was killed by traitors and collaborators - language that would suggest an Israeli role.
But in a leaflet sent to news agencies in Jerusalem, a group calling itself the Brigade of Al Aqsa Martyrs claimed responsibility for the killing.
"The failure (of Arafat) ... to punish corrupt people has forced us to carry out the assassination of Hisham Mikki," the leaflet said.
On Wednesday night, Arafat had a surprise meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami in Cairo.
Speaking for the first time since his surprise meeting, Arafat told reporters the two sides had agreed to talk further and return to Taba an Egyptian resort on the border with Israel, where negotiations that led to the second interim peace accord of 1995 took place.
The first Israeli-Palestinian agreement was in 1993.
SOUNDBITE: (Arabic)
"Of course we're still committed to what we agreed in Sharm El Sheik. And we hope that the Israeli side would also keep the same commitment which is the full strict implementation of the agreements of Sharm El Sheik one and two."
SUPER CAPTION: Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Leader
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Its a shame that Palestinian leaders and spokesmen have not been able to stand in front of their people and say - wait a minute, we understand your anger, but something has been proposed here that serves Palestinian interest and meets Palestinian objectives in the peace process"
SUPER CAPTION: Martin Indyk, US ambassador in Israel
SOUNDBITE: (Arabic)
"Even if my brother was a traitor, I wouldn't spare his life. I would kill him myself. Traitors don't only harm their own families, they harm the whole nation. That's why they should be executed."
SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop
SOUNDBITE: (Arabic)
"We agreed to continue the negotiations which we agreed upon and we suggested to Ben Ami to return one more time, for instance, to Taba where we were able, if you remember, to reach important solutions with (former Israeli Prime Minister) Rabin and Peres and he said he would think about it. Meanwhile we told them that the efforts should continue to reach the implementation of what was agreed upon in Sharm el Sheikh One and Sharm el Sheikh Two."
SUPER CAPTION: Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Leader
