Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas greets Jordan's King Abdullah II in the Jordanian capital of Amman yesterday. (Omar Rashidi, Maan Images)

The slaying last weekend by Israeli Border Police of 11-year-old Mahmoud Ibrahim Al Karnawi and seven other Palestinians, both civilians and fighters, shows that the prospect of the peace summit called by George W. Bush has not compelled Israel to scale down its military campaign against Palestinians. Instead, Israel seems to be stepping up raids against Palestinian population centres and escalating pressure on Palestinian citizens at roadblocks and checkpoints as the Olmert government contemplates legalising settlement outposts in the West Bank.

There was a brief flurry of comment in some Israeli media about Karnawi because he was a citizen of the Jewish state. His mother, from the village of Saida near Tulkarem in the West Bank, is married to a resident of the bedouin town of Rahat, located in Israel "proper". Israel is a little sensitive to some bedouin concerns because members of this community serve in the Border Police. The dead boy was visiting maternal relatives in Saida when the Israeli police stormed their house, killing him and a member of Islamic Jihad.

According to Palestinian witnesses, Mahmoud and the other fatality were finished off with shots to the head by the Israelis. A third Jihad fighter died in custody. Two Palestinians were killed in Gaza and three in Jenin.

The weekend tally was not unusual. The Gaza-based Palestinian Human Rights Centre reported that during the week of August 16-22, 16 Palestinians, including three children, were killed and 18 injured by Israeli forces. Thirteen of the fatalities were in the Gaza Strip; 10 were executed; 44 were kidnapped and detained. Between August 9 and 15, the toll was eight killed, 31 injured and 61 arrested.

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In an opinion article published in the Israeli liberal daily Haaretz last Sunday, Zvi Bar’el predicted the killing would carry on until the summit, even if it runs the risk of torpedoing negotiations. He even suggested that Israel is escalating its raids and shootings ahead of the summit.

"Suddenly, it seems that everything is permissible because 'there is a summit'. It is permissible to kill children in Gaza, it is all right to continue to harass civilians at checkpoints, it is permitted to continue to strangle a million and a half people in Gaza - because there will soon be a summit and everything will be fine; we just need to liquidate another senior wanted man before the peace."

Aware that he is losing face in front of his people for continuing to talk to Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert while Israeli forces raid Palestinian cities and towns, President Mahmoud Abbas has called for a halt to Israeli raids and assassinations. But Israel has turned a deaf ear to his pleas.

Amnesty International reported that Israel killed more than 650 Palestinians during 2006, half of them unarmed civilians, including 120 children. This figure is three times the number of Palestinian fatalities in 2005. During 2006, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians fell by half, to 27; amongst them were 20 civilians and one child.

To read the full article please visit The Jordan Times.