Mar 8, 2008 12:00 pm US/Pacific
Israel To Hold Peace Talks Despite Violence
JERUSALEM (AP) ―
Israeli officials said Saturday that they would hold peace talks with the Palestinians this week despite a shooting attack earlier in the week that killed eight Israelis.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity since there was no official announcement yet. A Palestinian negotiator had said that one negotiating session would be held on Thursday.
Earlier in the day, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had called for Israel not to abandon peace efforts despite a recent escalation of violence. On Thursday, eight Israelis were killed when a Palestinian attacked a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. The attacks were in retaliation to an Israeli offensive in Gaza earlier in the week that left 100 people dead.
Israeli airstrikes Monday targeted weapons manufacturing and storage facilities. Groups of gunmen killed five Palestinians, all of them Hamas militants, Hamas said. Gaza militants continued launching rockets at southern Israel. Three rockets hit Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, Monday morning, Israeli rescue services said, with one striking an apartment building. No casualties were reported.
Israeli infantry started withdrawing from the town of Jebalya after midnight following several days of fighting, the military said, but the government vowed it would continue its offensive against rocket squads.
Palestinian medical teams found three more bodies in Jebalya after the Israeli troops left. At least one of them was a militant, they said. Residents trapped in their houses for days began emerging, and some collected equipment left behind by the Israelis: ammunition clips, food cans, two bloody stretchers and a helmet with a bullet hole in it.
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