Kofi Annan has pledged that the international community will help Israel and the Palestinians back on the path to peace. The UN Secretary General made the pledge on the last leg of his Middle East tour. Mr Annan left for London after talks with the Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres. His week-long trip has been marked by a sharp drop in violence following the ceasefire accord forged by CIA chief George Tenet.
As part of his Middle East mission, Mr Annan visited the school attended by many of the victims of a suicide bomber who killed 20 people including himself outside a Tel Aviv nightclub three weeks ago.
Mr Annan has proposed a meeting between Israeli leaders and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to shore up the ceasefire in the Middle East. However, cracks have surfaced in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "national unity government" over the prospect of moving to talks with Mr Arafat just four days after the start of the fragile US-brokered truce.
Meanwhile, there was further violence in the region today. Israeli soldiers shot dead a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip. Earlier, a Palestinian has been injured in an attempted suicide bomb attack on Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip. Israeli radio said that the man drove a cart filled with explosives towards soldiers in an armoured personnel carrier in the south of the territory. The cart exploded prematurely, injuring the driver.
