Israel Gives Palestinians A Deadline

(CBS/AP)  Israel will give the Palestinians until the end of the year to prove they are willing to negotiate a final peace deal, and will unilaterally set its final borders by 2008 if they don't, Israel's justice minister said Wednesday.

It comes on the heels of a decision by Mideast peacemakers to funnel humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, which Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday is "certainly acceptable" to Israel.

Meanwhile, Dor Energy, the Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian areas, is cutting off supplies due to growing debts.

In other developments:

Palestinian factions agreed to stop trying to kill each other after the Palestinian premier got involved. Ismail Haniyeh summoned Hamas and Fatah leaders to his office after a second day of violence on Tuesday which hit a funeral and caught some children in the crossfire.

The Israeli army said it has thwarted the transfer of 1,100 pounds of TNT to the Gaza Strip from Egypt by boat. Israeli navy vessels intercepted the Palestinian boat sailing from Egypt last week as it was transporting the explosives along the Gaza Strip's maritime border with the Arab country. When the crew on the Palestinian boat saw the Israeli navy boats approaching, they dumped the bags of weapons-grade TNT into the sea before escaping to the Gaza shore, the army said.

Jordan has detained more than 20 Hamas activists for smuggling arms from Syria, a government spokesman said Wednesday, revealing for the first time the number of Palestinians arrested since the cache was uncovered.

The statement by Justice Minister Haim Ramon, a close associate of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's, was the first by an Israeli official to set a deadline for the Hamas-led Palestinian government to disarm and recognize the Jewish state.

The Palestinians' moderate president, Mahmoud Abbas, of the rival Fatah party, has tried to persuade Israel to bypass Hamas and resume peace talks with him, but Olmert has said he wouldn't negotiate with Abbas if Hamas didn't change its violent ways.

"Through the end of this year, 2006, there will be honest attempts to talk to the other side," Ramon told Israel's Army Radio.

"If it becomes clear by the end of the year that we really have no partner, and the international community is also convinced of this, then we will take our fate into our own hands and not leave our fate in the hands of our enemies," he added.

While the cash strapped Hamas government welcomed the resumption of international aid, it said it could not agree to the Quartet's demands to recognize Israel, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page »