Thirty army tanks, backed by at least three helicopter gunships, were involved in the attack on a residential building. Israeli authorities said they were seeking to kill members of the Palestinian organization Hamas who had allegedly prepared bombs used for suicide attacks inside Israel.

Young men from throughout the neighborhood waged a 15-hour battle against Israeli forces, which were armed with heavy machine guns, tank shells, and missiles fired from helicopters. After several hours the Palestinian combatants were able to evacuate civilians from the building. Israeli troops then blew up the building, killing Hamas leader Yusef Abu Hin, 38, and his two brothers, Ayman, 30, and Mahmud, 29, who had remained inside.

"It’s a map, but the road is to Israel. It is not a road to a Palestinian state," said a 70-year-old woman outside the demolished building, voicing a view expressed by many Palestinians. She was referring to the White House-sponsored plan, dubbed "the road map."

According to a summary of the three-stage plan for a "two-state solution" released by the U.S. State Department, in the first phase the Palestinian Authority would enforce an "unconditional cessation of violence" against the Israeli regime, resume "security cooperation" with Tel Aviv, "restructure" Palestinian police forces, and carry out a "comprehensive political reform" of the Palestinian Authority, including elections and a new constitution--as deemed acceptable by Washington.

The plan was drafted at the end of last year but released only after the appointment of Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, a body with limited authority over a patchwork of territory in the occupied territories. Washington and Tel Aviv have demanded "political reforms" of the Palestinian Authority to weaken and isolate Yasser Arafat, the central leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and president of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas has publicly condemned attacks on the Israeli government.

Just hours before Abbas was sworn in, an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at a car in the Gaza Strip, killing Nidal Salama, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Two members of Al-Aqsa Brigades, the guerrilla organization associated with the Arafat-led wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, were killed in a firefight near the group’s headquarters, Israeli military officials said.

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has said he is prepared to meet with Abbas, but that Israel will only accept a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty. U.S. president George Bush has praised Abbas as a "man dedicated to peace...that I look forward to working with."

Abbas has said he will not visit any foreign capital until Tel Aviv lifts travel restrictions imposed on Arafat, which effectively confine him to his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Sharon has asserted that Arafat is "free" to leave but that his safe return is not guaranteed.

The so-called road map also requires Tel Aviv to end attacks against Palestinians, halt further expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and to withdraw from Palestinian territories occupied since September 2000. But Sharon has insisted that the Palestinian Authority must disarm and arrest members of Hamas, the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and other groups before there is a halt to the settlements. Hamas and Hezbollah oppose the "peace plan" and have said they will continue to fight the Israeli government.

The plan sets a timetable for establishing an independent Palestinian state by 2005 alongside the Israeli state. Dov Weinglass, chief of the Israeli prime minister’s office, said the Israeli government opposes a set timetable. He demanded that Washington alone oversee monitoring of security issues--excluding the European Union members, Russia, and the United Nations--and that the Palestinians must drop their historic demand for the right of return to lands from which they were expelled by Israeli forces in the 1940s.

Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, commented that the approach of the Israeli government would "kill the road map."

U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell traveled to Syria and Lebanon the first week in May to press for agreement from Beirut and Damascus to end their support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and other organizations that continue to oppose the Israeli regime. Powell announced that the Syrian government had agreed to close the offices of some groups in its capital.

On his arrival in Syria, Powell warned the government that the U.S. Congress had revived legislation containing sanctions against that country and that some embargo provisions of the 2001 U.S.A. Patriot Act could also be applied. He added that with the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein government in Iraq, a "new strategic dynamic" had been created in the region and warned that Washington would "take into account" Syria’s failure to meet its demands.

At the end of the recent invasion of Iraq, Washington accused Syria of giving sanctuary to high-ranking Iraqi officials who allegedly fled the country as U.S. troops pushed to take Baghdad. U.S. officials also argued that Syria had allowed Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" to be moved to that country. Powell disdained to even discuss a resolution submitted to the UN Security Council by Damascus calling for the removal of such weapons from the entire Middle East. Washington’s opposition to such a measure is not surprising, because the Israeli government is widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Tel Aviv, which has refused to confirm or deny the assertion, has not signed any international treaty on the control of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

Powell visited Spain before traveling to Syria to discuss how Madrid could help apply pressure on Damascus. The Spanish government sponsored the 1991 conference that led to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement known as the Oslo Accords. Madrid backed the U.S.-led war against Iraq and is eager to take the opportunity to strengthen its position as a very junior partner of U.S. imperialism in the Mideast.  
 
 
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