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Palestinian attack suspected after two Israeli policemen shot dead • Prisoner-swap deadline on eve of PM's departure• Gazan militants captured 22-year-old three years ago Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 March 2009 01.42 GMT Article history Two Israeli policemen were shot dead in the West Bank yesterday in what Israeli police said they suspected was a Palestinian attack.No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting, which took place near the mainly agricultural settlement of Massuah, in an area of the West Bank close to the border with Jordan that is under Israeli security control. "The main suspicion points to a nationalistic motive," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.The attack came as the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.

the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.

He sent Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, and Ofer Dekel, a long-time negotiator and former security official, with a reported offer that would have seen the release of some but not all the prisoners Hamas has demanded be freed in return for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the Holy Basin area of Jerusalem would be under no sovereignty at all and administered by a joint committee of Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans, the former prime minister told Newsweek magazine in an interview in the current issue.

The proposal to internationalize the Holy Basin was intended to achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations around the issues of sovereignity over holy sites in Jerusalem, the issue which had reportedly caused the breakdown of the Camp David talks in July 2000.

Newsweek notes the offer was made in September 2008, when Olmert was heading a transition government and had already resigned from his post, rendering coalition considerations irrelevant.

In a blunt and belligerent speech on his first day as Israel’s new foreign minister, the hawkish nationalist Avigdor Lieberman declared Wednesday that “those who wish for peace should prepare for war” and that Israel was not obligated by understandings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reached at an American-sponsored peace conference in late 2007.

“Those who think that through concessions they will gain respect and peace are wrong,” Mr. Lieberman said during a transfer ceremony at the Foreign Ministry. “It is the other way around; it will lead to more wars.”

The aim of the Annapolis process, as it became known, was to agree on the framework for a Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2008, a goal that was not achieved. Mr. Lieberman said that the Israeli government “never ratified Annapolis, nor did Parliament,” and that it therefore “has no validity.”

Israel will not withdraw from the entire Golan Heights in return for a peace deal with Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top policy adviser said in an interview published Friday, rejecting Syria's key demand for an agreement with Israel.

The two countries could split the territory, suggested Uzi Arad, Netanyahu's national security adviser and the aide widely seen as closest to Netanyahu. But in the comments in the daily Haaretz newspaper, he said Israel must remain on the Golan Heights to a depth of several miles and cannot withdraw in full even in return for a peace agreement.

The area is also home to crucial water sources, a profitable Israeli winery, and Israeli settlements with about 18,000 residents. About 17,000 Druse Arabs loyal to Syria also live there.

Two senior Israeli envoys have returned from indirect talks with Hamas in Cairo without a deal on the release of captured soldier, Gilad Shalit.

The talks were part of a final push by outgoing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to secure a deal before he leaves office.

The two envoys, Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet security service, and negotiator Ofer Dekel, are due to brief ministers at a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

sraeli soldiers routinely and intentionally put children in harm's way during their 22-day offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza, according to a United Nations report made public Monday.

The report said a working group had documented and verified reports of violations "too numerous to list." For example, on January 15, in a town southwest of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces soldiers ordered an 11-year-old boy to open Palestinians' packages, presumably so that the soldiers would not be hurt if they turned out to contain explosives, the 43-page report said. They then forced the boy to walk in front of them in the town, it said. When the soldiers came under fire, "the boy remained in front of the group," the report said.

Also cited were "credible reports" that accused Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that runs Gaza, of using human shields and placing civilians at risk. But it singled out the Israelis for more sweeping criticism. A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister called the report another example of the "one-sided and unfair" attitude of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which requested it.

Iran's "fanatical rulers" pose a nuclear threat to the Middle East and "are on the wrong side of history," Israeli President Shimon Peres said Monday.

"In addition to their nuclear option, they [Iran] invest huge capital in long-range missiles," the Israeli president said. "Iran is not threatened by anybody. Why do they need it?" Peres addressed members of the pro-Israel lobbyist group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC. It is the group's first policy conference since President Obama's administration took office this year.

"Israel stands with her arms outstretched, her hands held open, to peace with all nations, with all Arab states, with all Arab people," Peres said at Monday's conference. "To those having a clenched fist, I have just one word to say: Enough. Enough war. Enough destruction. Enough hatred."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not asked the US for permission to strike in Iran, for fear the White House would to approve, two US officials told the Washington Times.

One of the officials said that Netanyahu came to the conclusion that "'it made no sense' to press the matter after the negative response President Bush gave Mr. Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, when he asked early last year for US aid for possible military strikes on Iran."  

According to the Times, "At the very least, Israel likely would have to fly over Iraqi airspace, which is still effectively controlled by the US Air Force."  

President Shimon Peres said on Monday that Syrian President Bashar Assad must understand that Israel would not hand over the Golan Heights on a "silver platter" so long as Damascus continued its ties with Iran and Hezbollah. Peres told visiting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that a true peace process between the long time enemies would have to take place at the negotiating table, without preconditions or mediation.

Syrian officials last month threatened to take back the Golan Heights by force if a peace agreement involving the return of the strategic plateau is not reached with Israel. Advertisement A group calling itself the Syrian Committee for the Freedom of the Golan said it would take steps to regain control of the territory, adding that Israel has not shown willingness to achieve peace or to return what they called "Syrian land."

Just prior to that, Assad rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's offer to resume peace talks between the two countries from "point zero." Assad said the negotiations should resume from the point at which they stopped under former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, when the two sides had planned to formulate mutual commitments that would enable the talks to move to a direct negotiations stage.

the United States supports the creation of a viable Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza. The new Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu opposes this goal, and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has already said that he does not think Israel is bound by its recent commitments on this issue.  

To advance its own interests, therefore, the United States will have to pursue a more even-handed policy than it has in the past, and put strong pressure on both sides to come to an agreement. Instead of the current "special relationship" -- where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support -- the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs).  While still committed to Israel’s security, the United States would use the leverage at its disposal to make a two-state solution a reality.

This idea appears to be gaining ground. Several weeks ago, a bipartisan panel of distinguished foreign policy experts headed by Henry Siegman and Brent Scowcroft issued a thoughtful report calling for the Obama administration to “engage in prompt, sustained, and determined efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Success, they noted, "will require a careful blend of persuasion, inducement, reward, and pressure..."

Mr Lieberman's speech came a day after Mr Netanyahu offered the Palestinians self-rule in place of the statehood that had at least rhetorically been on offer in a declaration accompanying the relaunch of peace talks under the leadership of Ehud Olmert at the Annapolis conference. But Mr Lieberman said "The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did parliament."

Mr Lieberman took issue with the very idea of concessions towards the Palestinians saying that "whoever thinks that through concessions peace will be achieved is mistaken. He is only inviting pressure and more wars."

Mr Lieberman said that instead of the Annapolis process, Israel would follow the "road map", the name of a 2003 blueprint of reciprocal steps advancing to a two-state solution. But Israel's cabinet never ratified that agreement, and the government has instead used the term to refer to a cabinet decision spelling out reservations about the plan.

Israel's military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.In a 71-page report, the rights group said the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus artillery shells in populated areas of Gaza was not incidental or accidental, but revealed "a pattern or policy of conduct".

"In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, a senior Human Rights Watch researcher. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safe smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died."

Human Rights Watch found 24 spent white phosphorus shells in Gaza, all from the same batch made in a US ammunition factory in 1989 by Thiokol Aerospace. Other shells were photographed during the war with markings showing they were made in the Pine Bluff Arsenal, also in America, in 1991.