Palestinian security official warns Israel

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- A Palestinian security chief said Wednesday Israel's use of live ammunition and helicopter gunships against Palestinians would only harden their resolve.

Mohammed Dahlan, head of the Preventive Security Service in Gaza, accused Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak of "resorting to military confrontations with the Palestinians to gain what he failed to win through peaceful negotiations."

Israel has made the same allegation against the Palestinian leadership during the wave of violence sweeping the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab villages in northern Israel.

"They wanted to make us kneel with live ammunition and rockets," said Dahlan, who participated in the inconclusive Camp David peace summit last July. "But this will not change anything. This will make us more determined in our stance."

Dahlan's comments, in an interview with Reuters, coincided with talks in Paris involving Barak, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Palestinians, Dahlan said, demand that Israel withdraw all its forces from the entrances of Palestinian cities to defuse tensions.

If Israeli forces do not pull back, Palestinians "will not raise the white flag and we will defend ourselves...despite the imbalance of power," he said.

Israel has called on Palestinian security chiefs to exert control over gunmen allied with the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization who have been on the front line of confrontation that has killed 58 people, mostly Arabs.

The violence began last Thursday after Israeli right-winger Ariel Sharon inflamed Arab anger by visiting -- under heavy Israeli guard -- a Jerusalem shrine holy to Muslims and Jews.

"The battle is not about Sharon's visit," Dahlan insisted. "It is pre-planned by Israel to wage a war against the Palestinian leadership to make us kneel after they failed to force us to compromise on our positions at Camp David."

The talks became deadlocked over sensitive issues at the heart of the 52-year-old conflict such as the fate of Jerusalem, borders and Palestinian refugees.

Dahlan said he and other Palestinian security officials had conducted three meetings with their Israeli counterparts since the outbreak of the violence. "But each time we arrive at a cease-fire, Israel violates it," he said.

Col. Moty Yogev, Israel's military commander in the Gaza Strip, said in a separate interview with Reuters that the army "will be happy for any cease-fire" but the Palestinian side refused to stop the confrontations, he said.

"Israel is determined to continue massacres against the Palestinian people," said Dahlan. "But these battles will not change our red lines."

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