JERUSALEM – Two unarmed international observers were killed by a Palestinian gunman – possibly a police officer – in a West Bank ambush yesterday, a wounded survivor of the attack said.
The slaying cast a pall over today’s opening of an Arab summit in Beirut – which was further damaged when PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat canceled his appearance.
The West Bank deaths were the first suffered by the foreign monitors – part of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) – since they were stationed in the area seven years ago. The Israeli army and a Norwegian official said a Palestinian killed the observers, but the Palestinian mayor of a nearby town insisted Israeli soldiers fired the shots.
Turkish observer Hussain Ozar Salam gave this account from a hospital where he was recovering from a gunshot wound:
He said he was in the back seat of a clearly marked TIPH car when a gunman “started to shoot at us.”
“We shouted ‘Don’t shoot!’ and said we were from the international force.”
“He didn’t care. He kept shooting until he finished his magazine,” Salam told Israeli radio.
He said the gunman “was in a Palestinian police-force uniform” and fired at least 30 bullets.
Israeli authorities said the Palestinian apparently mistook the car’s occupants for Jewish settlers.
The car’s Turkish driver, Maj. Cengiz Soytunc, and an unidentified Swiss woman officer were killed immediately.
Meanwhile, Arab and Israeli officials were blaming one another for the uncertain fate of the Beirut summit following the withdrawal of Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Palestinian officials said Arafat had decided to address the summit by video hookup from his headquarters in Ramallah – because he wouldn’t accept the “blackmail” of Israel’s conditions for letting him attend.
But Israeli officials said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had lowered his conditions before Arafat canceled.
Last week, Sharon said he would relax travel restrictions on Arafat if he began implementing the cease-fire plan.
But yesterday, after a series of phone calls from Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sharon said he would let Arafat attend the summit if he just made an appeal to the Palestinians to end violence.
But Sharon added that he might not let Arafat return to the West Bank if a new terrorist attack occurred while he was away.
Bush administration officials had hoped the presence of Mubarak and Arafat would help the Arab summit endorse a Saudi proposal for a sweeping Mideast peace accord.
Mubarak had earlier announced that he wouldn’t go to Beirut because of the Israeli conditions – and he warned Arafat that Sharon might destroy his Ramallah headquarters while he was away.
But a top Israeli official said Mubarak canceled because of fears of an attack on the summit by Hezbollah, which opposes any peace with Israel.