Annan urges Mid-East peace force

Annan urged Israel to keep its response 'proportionate'

UN peacekeepers should be sent to the Middle East to try to break the accelerating cycle of violence there, the UN secretary general has said.

Kofi Annan said a force of 51 American monitors due to arrive next week "was a beginning", but only an armed "buffer" force would be able to halt the escalation of violence.

Shortly after he spoke, reports came through of two Israeli motorists injured in a shooting attack near the West Bank town of Ramallah.

It appeared to be the latest instalment in an increasingly bitter, vengeful series of attacks that have brought the "roadmap" peace plan to crisis less than 10 days after the peace summit that launched it.

The issue is Hamas. The terrorists are Hamas

Ari Fleischer
White House spokesman

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Kofi Annan also urged Israel to limit its response to Palestinian attacks to "proportionate measures" - although he acknowleged that "this is very difficult".

On Friday, Israeli army radio renewed pledges to exterminate Hamas, the militant group behind Wednesday's Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed 17.

'No limit'

It quoted senior officials as saying "the war against Hamas will now be pursued without quarter and no limit exists on hitting its leaders, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin".

Sheikh Yassin is the spiritual leader of Hamas, until now seen as off-limits as an Israeli target due to the unrest his assassination would be likely to stir.

ROAD MAP'S PATH TO CRISIS

4 June: US-Jordanian-Israeli summit in Aqaba

8 June: Hamas attacks Gaza army base, kills four soldiers

10 June: Israeli attempt to kill Hamas leader Rantissi

11 June: Suicide attack on Jerusalem bus; Israeli missile strikes on Gaza

The increasing aggression came as the US - which surprised Israel by reprimanding it over Tuesday's attempt to kill another Hamas leader - signalled a switch in stance over the break-down of peace moves.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on Thursday laid the blame for the break-down squarely on the shoulders of "the terrorists", Hamas.

In return, Hamas warned such a stance could only "promote new Zionist aggression and throw oil on the fire".

One Hamas spokesman threatened Israelis that "your wives, your husbands, your children - all will be a target".

It is to this scene of bloodshed that the US envoy John Wolf will arrive in Jerusalem on his first trip to Israel, says our correspondent Jonny Dymond.

The escalation of violence has turned his envisaged task of monitoring and encouraging implementation of the road map into a desperate bid to salvage it, he says.