Hussein mourns as peace crumbles

King Hussein of Jordan yesterday visited the families of the seven teenage Israeli girls murdered by a Jordanian soldier last week, as Israel prepared to go ahead with building a controversial Jewish settlement at Har Homa in Jerusalem.

At a joint press conference with King Hussein, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, confirmed that construction works would go head. He said: "I said they will begin this week. They will begin this week." He added that he and the King had talked with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, on the telephone, and efforts were being made to reach agreement on opening a Palestinian airport in Gaza.

Members of the government known to be opposed to the Oslo peace accords in the past are becoming vociferous. Threatening that Israeli forces might re-enter Gaza to expel Mr Arafat, Zachi Hanegbi, the Minister of Justice, said: "Whoever launches violence could very quickly find himself packing a suitcase and travelling backwards and forwards from Tunis to Baghdad as he [Arafat] did for many years."

Ethan Haber, a former adviser to Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated in 1995, said: "Har Homa may be the tombstone of Oslo."

Earlier, King Hussein, accompanied by Mr Netanyahu, visited the families of the seven girls from a school at Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, to offer his condolences. All were in deep mourning. The Jordanian leader was received with bread and salt before telling Israel Patakhi that he mourned his daughter's death as if "I lost my daughter".

In halting English, Mr Patakhi, of Yemenite origin, read a letter he had prepared calling for peace between Jordan and Israel. He said: "It is closer from here to Amman [the Jordanian capital] than it is from here to Haifa [in Israel]." King Hussein said: "The memory of your daughter will live with me forever. I hope her memory will give you strength."

Many of those who lost their children are Jews originally from North Africa, and older family members spoke to the King in Arabic. One man said afterwards that he had wanted to ask the King, but had been overcome by the occasion, why Jordanian soldiers had at first not allowed Israeli medical teams to tend the wounded.

Meiri, the mother of Yaala Miri, said: "They didn't even let the teachers console the girls who were dying."

The massacre at Naharim, on the River Jordan, overshadowed a conference of foreign diplomats summoned by Mr Arafat in Gaza on Saturday. It was intended to reinforce international pressure on Israel not to build at Har Homa, but participants wanted to play down its significance. However, King Hussein's gesture in visiting the bereaved families in Israel may add to the pressure on Mr Netanyahu to do something conciliatory.

Israel and the Palestinians have nailed their flags so firmly to their respective masts over Har Homa that it will be difficult for either side to back down. There is little understanding in Israel that the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994, which is popular, could not have happened without the Oslo accord signed with the Palestinians in 1993. Uri Savir, formerly Israel's chief negotiator, said yesterday: "Israelis think there is a good peace represented by King Hussein and a bad peace represented by Arafat. But in fact there is only one peace."

Israeli press reports suggest that all Israeli intelligence services agree that building at Har Homa will lead to violence. Major General Mohe Yaalon, head of military intelligence, said: "We expect a wave of violence and disturbances which could lead to a dangerous escalation."