Mideast Frustration Continues
Two Israelis and a Palestinian were killed in Mideast violence Thursday, and the bodies of five Palestinians killed the night before were found.
The two Israelis were killed in a Palestinian attack in the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli police sources said. In Gaza, soldiers killed an armed Palestinian trying to attack a Jewish settlement. A radical PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claimed responsibility for the failed infiltration.
There was no official information on the attack in which the two Israelis were killed. Israel TV said the Israelis were hit by gunfire.
Hebron is a frequent flashpoint of violence. Under an interim peace accord, the city is divided into Israeli and Palestinian zones, because about 450 Jewish settlers live in three enclaves in the center of the city, surrounded by more than 100,000 Palestinians.
Last month, 12 Israeli soldiers and security guards were killed in an ambush after settlers returned from prayers at a holy site in Hebron to a nearby Jewish settlement.
Israeli soldiers patrol the areas where the settlers live, but during more than two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence, soldiers have often moved into the Palestinian areas as well. After the deadly attack on Nov. 16, Israeli soldiers took control of the Palestinian sections of the city and imposed curfews.
Also Thursday, an Israeli court ruled that it has the right to try Marwan Barghouti, a leader of the Palestinian uprising and the highest-ranking Palestinian official in Israeli custody.
Israel holds Barghouti responsible for many deadly terrorist attacks, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger. When the hearing began, he was heckled by a bereaved Israeli father.
"You're a murderer," the man said. "You killed our children."
"I'm a freedom fighter," Barghouti responded in Hebrew to the bereaved father, "and you are a victim of Israel's occupation."
The five Palestinians were killed Wednesday. The military said soldiers saw five suspicious figures near the border fence, in an area where Palestinians are barred from entering. Soldiers fired at the five, and their bodies were found Thursday morning, the army said. Ladders were found near the bodies, but no weapons.
The impoverished Gaza Strip is surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence to keep militants out of Israel. Palestinian laborers trying to sneak into Israel to find work sometimes try to cut through or climb over the fence.
Unemployment is above 50 percent in Gaza, and menial jobs in Israel were a mainstay of Gaza's economy before Israeli security closures forced Palestinian laborers to stay home.
With peacemaking stalled, Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday was ready to offer Arab nations U.S. support in promoting democracy and adapting to the modern world.
Powell was outlining the Bush administration's intentions in a speech Thursday at the Heritage Foundation, a private research group.
He was expected to vow to push ahead on the number-one political issue for most Arab states: the now nearly nonexistent, Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
It's not doing well, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier. Two weeks before Christmas, the little town of Bethlehem, like most Palestinian territory, is mostly silent, except for the Israeli troops who moved back in after the last bloody suicide bombing on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
The Vatican has urged Israel to allow "free access" during Christmas in Bethlehem.
The Vatican issued its appeal to President Moshe Katsav, who met Thursday with Pope John Paul II and the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
The Vatican said it restated its support for both Israel and a Palestinian state and the need for a rapid conclusion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"In particular, an appeal was made for free access to Bethlehem on the occasion of the upcoming Christmas celebrations," a Vatican statement on the meetings said.
To bring either Israelis or Palestinians back to peace talks, when both the leaders and the people are so far apart, would take a monumental effort by the White House.
Critics are already saying that's not something Powell or Mr. Bush is going to do right now. They are dismissing this speech as diplomatic window-dressing for the U.S. campaign against Iraq — an attempt to make it look like Washington is trying to serve the best interests of the Arab world, when it's really out to serve its own.