Sharon Courts, Amnesty Condemns

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday courted a far-right party that holds the key to his government's survival, as he weighed ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu's offer to serve under him in exchange for early elections.

Meanwhile, the human rights group Amnesty International Monday accused Israel of committing "war crimes," including unlawful killings, in Jenin and Nablus during a broad military offensive in those West Bank cities in April. The report said Israeli troops carried out unlawful killings and torture, and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Israeli spokesman Daniel Taub told CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger that the Amnesty report is one-sided because it completely ignores Palestinian terrorism.

"We had to go in to protect the lives of our civilians," he said. "The report seems to focus entirely on what Israel did as if it happened in a vacuum, and not considering what the context was, what the danger that Israel was facing, the fight for the lives of our civilians.

"When we know for a fact that as we speak there are people preparing car bombs and suicide bomber belts to blow up our women, our children, our men in buses and in restaurants throughout the centers of our country, we can't still and do nothing."

Israeli army troops Monday killed five Palestinian men in three separate shootings in the Gaza Strip.

No weapons were found on any of the five, according to the two sides.

The Israeli media said Sharon would reject the condition Monday, a busy political day in which parliament was expected to confirm a hard-line new defense minister, former military chief Shaul Mofaz, and reject several no-confidence motions against Sharon proposed by the dovish opposition.

Sharon has the support of only 55 of 120 legislators after the moderate Labor Party bolted his coalition last week in a dispute over funding for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

But he may have a temporary safety net from a far-right grouping whose seven lawmakers seem ready to prop up the government long enough to pass the 2003 budget in coming weeks. But after that, they may favor forcing early elections.

Negotiators from the group, the National Union-Israel Beiteinu, presented Sharon with tough terms for joining his coalition: that he formally cancel Israel's commitment to interim peace accords with the PLO that were reached in the 1990s and declare the Palestinian Authority that was established by those agreements a terrorist entity.

"This is a good opportunity to change the government's policies," said Avigdor Lieberman, a lawmaker from the party. "If (Sharon) won't change the basic policies and he won't change anything ... why should we join the government?"

Sharon has said elections should not be held before their regularly scheduled date a year from now.

But on Sunday, Netanyahu made early elections a condition for his accepting Sharon's offer to join the government as foreign minister. Netanyahu argued that stable government is impossible given the current parliamentary makeup, and that the governing Likud party will emerge from balloting significantly strengthened.

Analysts and political observers generally agreed Netanyahu's move was part of a broader effort to challenge Sharon for Likud's leadership in a primary ahead of any general election, but were divided on whether Sharon would accept the terms.

Sharon, meanwhile, was seeking parliament approval Monday for Mofaz, a reputed hawk who was military chief until June. He angered Palestinians with his tough policies and he has voiced support for exiling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Netanyahu also backs the expulsion of Arafat — whom he accuses of terrorism — but his spokeswoman Rena Riger said this was not a condition for joining Sharon's government.

Although Sharon has sought to marginalize Arafat, he has refrained from expelling the Palestinian leader, heeding warnings from advisers that the move would anger the United States and inflame passions in the region.

The army shot and killed three men in central Gaza late Sunday when they approached a heavily guarded border fence with Israel, an area that Palestinians have tried to infiltrate before, the army said. The bodies were found early Monday.

Also Sunday, near the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, troops shot and killed an 18-year-old Palestinian who tried to climb a fence bordering an Israeli-controlled area.

Palestinians said the unarmed man was mentally handicapped and wandered into the area by mistake. Troops opened fire because they suspected the man was carrying a weapon — but when they reached the body they found he was not armed, the army said.

In Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, a 36-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by troops who opened fire from the nearby Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim, a Palestinian hospital said. Palestinians said the man was unarmed. The army said it was not aware of the incident.

Palestinian militants have often fired on Jewish settlements and Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip over the past two years of Mideast fighting. Palestinians accuse the army of firing indiscriminately and often hitting civilians.

In the latest report, titled "Israel and the Occupied Territories: Shielded from Scrutiny — IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus," Amnesty said there is "clear evidence that some of the acts committed by the Israel Defense Forces ... were war crimes."

Israeli carried out "unlawful killings, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, wanton destruction of hundreds of homes," according to Amnesty.

Soldiers also blocked access to ambulances and denied humanitarian assistance, leaving the wounded and dead lying in the streets for days, and used Palestinians as "human shields" while searching for suspected militants, Amnesty said.

"Up to now, the Israeli authorities have failed in their responsibility to bring to justice the perpetrators of serious human rights violations," the Amnesty report said.