03 June 2006

Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Egyptian policemen who strayed over their common border Friday, days before a key meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Hosni Mubarak. On the Palestinian political front, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya appeared Friday to reject the idea of a national referendum on peace talks with Israel and indicated that the document President Mahmoud Abbas wants Hamas to back should be opened for deeper discussion first.

The deaths of the Egyptian policemen are likely now to be a major issue during Sunday talks between Olmert and Mubarak, the first Arab head of state to meet the Israeli premier.

"This morning, June 2, the bodies of two policemen with the force assigned to guard the international border in Sinai were found 200 meters across the international line," the Egyptian Interior Ministry said. An investigation is under way to determine the circumstances of the deaths, the ministry said.

It added that the men, identified in a statement as Mohammad Badawi Mohammad Sadiq and Ayman al-Saeed Hamid, "had been shot," saying that their "weapons and equipment were with them" when the bodies were recovered.

A senior Israeli military commander said soldiers patrolling near the Egyptian border saw three men infiltrating at least 100 meters into Israel and opening fire on them. He said the troops shot back and killed two, while the third fled.

The soldiers later identified the men as uniformed Egyptian border policemen, he said.

Egyptian security sources suggested the shooting was one-sided and said they did not believe the men had opened fire.

"During their border patrol they lost their way and went onto Israeli land, where the Israeli Army fired on them," one source said, adding that the two dead policemen were armed. The Egyptian security sources had no details of a third man.

The Sharm el-Sheikh summit will be Olmert's first opportunity to explain to Mubarak his controversial plan to fix the final borders of the Jewish state in the course of his four-year term of office, even without a negotiated agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

In an attempt to counter Olmert's unilateral plans, Abbas gave Palestinian factions until the end of next week to agree on a document implicitly recognizing Israel or face a referendum. The document was drawn up by jailed faction leaders.

Ahead of the looming deadline, Haniyya said people did not have time for votes.

"Our people don't have time for elections and referendums because they need to concentrate on ways to end the siege and foil the world conspiracy against our cause," he said.

"There are strategic issues that no party, no person can decide by themselves," Haniyya said, referring to the fact that the document was drawn up by a small group of prisoners still imprisoned in an Israeli jail.

"We must look into these items in order to develop the document," he said.

In his rousing speech to followers, Haniyya pledged that his government would not collapse, despite the intense pressure being applied against it.

"This government will go on. All parties outside and on the inside have to respect the will of the Palestinian people,"

Haniyya said, referring to elections held in January.

On the ground, meanwhile, Israeli soldiers arrested a wounded Palestinian militant from his hospital bed in an intensive care unit at the Saint Luke Hospital in the northern city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Jawad al-Kaabi, a member of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had been wounded in the stomach on Wednesday during an Israeli operation in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. - Agencies