The European Union will not relent in its pursuit of a Middle East truce despite the recent violence, EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana said today.
A raid by Palestinian gunmen which killed four Israeli soldiers and the two militants, Israel's seizure of a shipload of arms it said were ordered by Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat and a Palestinian militant group's abandonment of a ceasefire have jeopardised US-led peace efforts in the last week.
"The European Union is not going to throw in the towel. The European Union is going to continue working because there is a chance of peace and stability in the region," Mr Solana told a news conference in Madrid.
Mr Arafat's December 16th call, under international pressure, for an end to attacks on Israelis brought about a rare lull in the 15-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, which has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
The calm was strained by last week's ship seizure and shattered by yesterday's raid, Solana said.
"We had been living certainly in the most optimistic time in recent years in the second half of December from a security point of view, and two incidents have annulled this moment of hope," he said.
Today's announcement by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad that it was scrapping a deal with Arafat not to mount attacks in Israel only made the outlook bleaker, he added.