JERUSALEM – Israeli officials feared the worst last night as their security forces frantically hunted for a kidnapped Jewish settler, whose disappearance heaped tension on the boiling Mideast.
The settler, Roni Slah, worked yesterday in the settlement of Hos-Yan before disappearing, and his empty car was later found ablaze in the neighboring Palestinian town of Khan Yunes in the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said.
Hopes dimmed as the Israeli military searched for him into the night.
Israeli troops retaliated by shelling the settlement of Netzarim, with one bomb landing about a mile from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s office in Gaza City, Palestinian officials said.
The kidnapping came as Palestinian security officials abruptly pulled out of a scheduled meeting with their Israeli counterparts as part of ongoing talks brokered by CIA chief George Tenet.
Tenet had won the commitment of both sides last Sunday to renew cooperation in beefing up security in the region.
But the kidnapping and other violent incidents since then effectively meant the agreement had “collapsed,” one high-ranking Israeli source said.
As for overall peace talks brokered by the Clinton administration, the most that could be hoped for was that any momentum established by the outgoing president be continued when President-elect George W. Bush takes office, officials from both sides said.
Meanwhile, Israelis were shaken by video footage aired on national TV of a Palestinian firing squad riddling with bullets the body of a Palestinian found guilty of collaborating with Israel.