Ramallah (West Bank), Dec 07: Palestinian officials today flatly rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's claims that al-Qaeda members had penetrated the Gaza Strip, and that Israel was circumventing Yasser Arafat in secret talks with the Palestinian leadership.
As Israel came in for more international criticism for its latest army operation in the Gaza Strip, the government said Israel regretted any civilian victims, but accused Palestinian militants of using "human shields."
Palestinian officials, meanwhile, said the violence was making a delay in elections planned for next month increasingly likely.
In a television interview set to air today, Sharon said his government was already engaged "secretly" in talks with people "from the Palestinian leadership," but not Arafat.


He said there was "definitely" an alternative to Arafat, but did not elaborate in the excerpts broadcast last night.
Government spokesman Avi Pazner said the contacts had been going on "for a few months already." He said they would not reveal the identity of the contacts to avoid retribution against them by "Arafat and his cronies."


Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat rejected the statements as "unfounded and baseless" and said the hard-line Sharon was trying to appeal to more moderate voters ahead of Israel's own elections on January 28.


Arafat called the al-Qaeda charge "a big, big, big, big lie to cover his attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere, from Rafah to Jenin and in between."

Bureau Report