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- THE WEEK, Page 22WORLDA Test of Intentions
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- Middle East peace talks plod on, despite fighting along Israel's
- border
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- The militant Shi`ite group Hizballah, determined to do all it
- can to sabotage ongoing Arab-Israeli peace talks, has scored its
- best shot in that battle so far. Hizballah operators in Israel's
- self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon detonated a
- roadside bomb as an Israeli army convoy passed by on patrol,
- killing five soldiers. The blast -- and Israel's retaliatory
- attacks on Hizballah and Palestinian positions in Lebanon --
- brought new tensions to the table as Arab and Israeli
- negotiators conducted their seventh round of talks in
- Washington.
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- The fighting resulted in the death of 13 Israelis and
- Lebanese, including civilians on both sides. Hizballah managed
- to fire a Katyusha rocket into northern Israel, killing a
- teenage boy, while Israeli air, sea and artillery attacks
- likewise claimed a handful of innocent lives. At week's end
- Israeli tanks were poised along the Lebanese border, and
- Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah was calling for a general
- mobilization of his 3,500 fighters.
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- Despite the flare-up back home, the Washington negotiators
- continued to plod along in relatively civil discussions. Israel
- charged that Syria, the dominant power in Lebanon, could stop
- Hizballah violence if it tried. The Palestinians decried
- Israel's attack on a refugee camp in north Lebanon that
- Jerusalem claims is a base for terrorism. Still, all parties
- have apparently invested too much in a year of negotiations to
- quit over what is a regular cycle of skirmishing in southern
- Lebanon.
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