U.S. Begins Mideast Peace Push

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned from Washington early Friday as the United States embarked on a diplomatic effort to stop two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence and move toward peace.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops pulled out of Jenin, the Palestinian governor said, surrounding the town and digging a 6-foot-wide trench in flatlands to the west to keep vehicles from sneaking in and out.

The governor, Khaider Irshaid, told The Associated Press on Friday that the military informed him a curfew no longer would be enforced in Jenin. He said soldiers pulled out of the town but were surrounding it, keeping people from entering or leaving.

The military had no immediate comment, but a statement listed Jenin among five towns where a curfew would not be enforced Friday.

Israeli troops entered the towns in mid-June in response to two suicide bombings in Jerusalem, imposing curfews and banning travel.

In the latest violence in the region, an armed militant was killed near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip early Friday, a day after six Palestinians died when Israeli tanks shells crashed into a neighborhood during a clash.

The militant Islamic group Hamas said one of its men tried to attack a settlement and was killed. The Israeli military said troops shot an attacker who was firing a rifle and throwing grenades at soldiers near the settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip. Two soldiers were slightly wounded in an explosion, the military said.

In the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinians pelted a Jewish settlement with mortars overnight after six people were killed Thursday in nearby Rafah during a clash between armed Palestinians and Israeli soldiers along the Egyptian border.

Palestinians said all six were civilians, including two children and two women, killed when shells slammed into a crowded part of the Rafah refugee camp. Though Palestinian officials said eight were killed, there was no evidence of two more victims.

The Israeli military said soldiers returned fire toward gunmen taking cover in the camp, where they aimed rockets at an army bulldozer, damaging it. Israel expressed regret for the civilian casualties but blamed the militants for operating from civilian areas.

Palestinians called the incident a massacre.

In the Rafah camp on Friday, dazed survivors removed furniture from blood-spattered houses, telling of an 8-year-old girl, Shaima Abu Shamala, whose body was shattered by tank shells.

"Her blood will be a shameful mark on the face of the ugly world, who are watching us being killed," said her uncle, Jamal Abu Shamala, 36, who was wounded by the shell.

About 6,000 people joined a funeral procession for the dead, chanting "Revenge, revenge."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher repeated American concerns over civilian casualties in military operations.

"It is essential that Israeli forces take steps to prevent tragic incidents like those that have occurred over the past week or so," he said.

Sharon returned Friday morning from three days of talks in Washington about U.S. plans for an attack against Iraq and a blueprint for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Boucher said Assistant U.S. Secretary of State William Burns would begin a tour of Middle East countries Friday in Egypt, scheduling talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders next week to discuss details of the U.S. proposal, which is called a roadmap toward an agreement.

Boucher said Burns had no plans to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in keeping with an official U.S. boycott of him. The U.S. and Israeli governments charge that Arafat is responsible for terror attacks.

Burns met Thursday in Paris with Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath and gave him the U.S. plan, Shaath told The Associated Press. The blueprint calls for creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and convening an international peace conference next year, in keeping with the Bush formula outlined in a speech earlier this year, he said.

The speech, delivered June 24, envisioned a final agreement within three years, while demanding that the Palestinians choose new leaders and fight terrorism.

Sharon told Army Radio that the U.S. proposal was not binding.

"I haven't even had time to read it," he said, adding that he would discuss it with Burns.

In meetings with Mr. Bush and other U.S. officials in Washington, Sharon got assurances that the United States would give Israel advance warning in the event it attacks Iraq, and he heard U.S. plans to stop Iraq launching rockets at Israel, said a senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said President Bush made no request for Israeli restraint if Iraq did, nevertheless, attack Israel, as it did during the 1991 Gulf War

At the end of the two leaders' 40-minute meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Mr. Bush himself endorsed Israel's right to hit back.

"If Iraq were to attack Israel tomorrow, I'm sure there would be appropriate response," the president said at a joint news conference with Sharon. "I would assume the prime minister would respond. He's got a desire to defend himself."