Israeli leader relaxes demand for 7-day cease-fire

Announcement comes on heels of bloodiest day in 17-month conflict

LEE HOCKSTADER AND ALAN SIPRESS THE WASHINGTON POST

TULKARM, West Bank -- Under pressure from the United States, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Friday evening he will relax his demand for seven days of absolute quiet before Israel renews truce talks with the Palestinians.

His announcement came as a ferocious Israeli military offensive killed about 40 more Palestinians on Friday, the highest one-day death toll in 17 months of fighting.

The Israeli leader's aides said that rather than insisting on a full week's cease-fire as a precondition for renewing security talks, as he has for months, Sharon would accept an indeterminate number of days in which in his judgment the Palestinians made a serious effort to crack down on violence.

"If we see real efforts taking place, we're not putting any obstacles in the way," said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon. "Now it's up to the Palestinians -- how quickly this happens depends on them."

Before Sharon's announcement, U.S. officials were stressing that the Israelis and Palestinians must begin cooperating at once to implement a cease-fire plan developed last spring by CIA Director George Tenet.

State Department spokes-man Richard Boucher drove home the point in his daily briefing, using the word "immediate" and "immediately" more than a half-dozen times in describing U.S. expectations of the Israelis and Palestinians.

His comments came on the eve of a return trip to the region by the U.S. Middle East envoy, retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni.

"Zinni's goal is to get the parties to implement the Tenet security work plan steps immediately, to get them to take the steps," Boucher said.

"Even before he gets there, we would hope that they would take the steps necessary to stop the violence and to reduce the escalation, the provocation."

Despite the talk of renewing negotiations, Israeli forces redoubled their attacks in Gaza and the West Bank. Among the Palestinian dead were a hospital administrator, an ambulance medic, a 9-year-old boy and a general in the largest Palestinian security force.

Many of the other dead were members of the Palestinian security forces, which Israel says must crack down on militants and terrorists.

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