Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Two Islamic Jihad militants were arrested Saturday, sources said, a day after an attack near a Jewish settlement. Also Saturday, suspected militants riddled an Israeli bus with bullets, police said.
No one was injured in the assault on the armored bus near the West Bank city of Ramallah, police said. The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately clear.
In Gaza City, the two Islamic Jihad men were detained and their weapons confiscated, Palestinian security sources said without divulging additional details.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the recent Palestinian crackdown on anti-Israeli groups could help peace talks resume in a way outlined by an international commission headed by former Sen. George Mitchell.
Israel repeatedly has called for a complete cessation of violence before negotiations can restart.
"If the Palestinians continue at the pace they are going now, meaning making the arrests and thwarting (attacks), I think that we can start implementing Mitchell," Ben-Eliezer said Saturday.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called for an end to attacks against Israel two weeks ago, and since then there has been a sharp decline in violence. The Palestinian security forces have arrested some suspected militants, but the Israelis have demanded that Arafat take even stronger action.
In another development Saturday, dozens of Western protesters and Palestinian students dismantled parts of an Israeli military checkpoint near the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The demonstrators pushed aside concrete barriers, and at one point set a small hut on fire. Soldiers responded with tear gas, driving away the demonstrators, who were demanding the lifting of the checkpoint outside Bir Zeit University, the leading Palestinian university. No injuries or arrests were reported.
With violence declining, Israel said Friday it was lifting a blockade of Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem. But soldiers remained Saturday at the checkpoints on the edge of the town, examining the identity documents of Palestinians and everyone else seeking to enter or leave the town.
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