Los Angeles Times
JERUSALEM – Tzipi and Gadi Shemesh were planning for the birth of their third child. Instead, they were buried Friday, side by side.
The Shemeshes were killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber Thursday, minutes after they emerged from a downtown laboratory where they had seen ultrasound pictures of the 5-month-old fetus. They had just enough time to telephone a relative with the news.
Then the bomber blew himself up on Jerusalem’s busy King George Street, taking with him the Shemeshes and 48-year-old Yitzhak Cohen, a clothing merchant and father of six who had moved to Jerusalem from a West Bank settlement for safety’s sake.
On Friday, another suicide bomber detonated explosives at an Israeli army checkpoint near the West Bank town of Jenin, the third such bombing in Israel in three days. A total of 10 Israelis were killed in the two previous days; this time, only the bomber died, while several soldiers were slightly wounded. The army said the man was trying to travel into Israel when his taxi was stopped.
Despite the violence, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met Friday for another round of truce talks under U.S. supervision. The meeting ended inconclusively; but that it occurred at all was noteworthy. Israel had canceled Thursday night’s session and threatened reprisals for the suicide attacks.
Instead of immediate retaliation, however, Israel was persuaded to hold off by U.S. special envoy Anthony Zinni. The retired Marine Corps general is desperately trying to push the two sides into a cease-fire in time to allow Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney early next week, possibly in Egypt, and then travel to the midweek Arab summit in Beirut, Lebanon.
Zinni traveled to the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday and had what was described as one of his most tense encounters yet with Arafat. The body language told the story: In their photo opportunity, Zinni sat grim-faced, his square jaw locked stone-hard in a frown. Arafat scowled and slumped in his chair, covering part of his face with his hand.
Zinni accused Arafat publicly Thursday of failing to take action to stop attacks on Israeli civilians. Under direct pressure from Secretary of State Colin Powell, Arafat went on Palestinian television Thursday night to order his people to refrain from attacking Israeli civilians in Israel.
But a top commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an underground militia affiliated with Arafat’s Fatah movement, said Friday that he and his men were ignoring Arafat’s command.
“We are going to continue with our armed resistance,” said Naser Oweis, a commander based in the Nablus area. “We will continue on the path of martyrdom.”
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