AUGUST 2002

Saturday August 31, 2002

Two Mothers Grieving

By Dr. E. A. Richards for Palestine Chronicle

In a West Bank town, a young Palestinian mother sits on a wooden box, staring into space, neither seeing, nor hearing, with the image of her teen-age son impressed firmly in her minds eye.

He had been killed in a Palestinian firefight with Israeli troops near one of the settlements on a night when the moon shone in a cloudless sky, offering more than enough light to aim weapons by.

The Palestinian mother could not be consoled by her teary eyed husband, who tried to convince her that the son's death was a sacrifice for Palestine, and that the son died for a sacred cause.

She sat stiffly on the box, not moving even though the wind blew through the holes and cracks of the makeshift room, refusing to partake in the meager breakfast on the table before her. All she could think of was the babe she once suckled, the babe that grew in fine boy, and the boy that grew into a situation where he was forced to act as a man.

She hated whomever had brought this terrible event to pass, no matter whom or what he was, no matter that the event was described as being glorious by those who had no part in it.

This was the painful grieving she was experiencing ever since the news of her son's death was brought to her. She could not weep, she could not wail, all of her grief would be poured out later when her son was placed in his last resting place.

In an Israeli town near the West Bank town, a young Israeli mother sits on a kitchen chair, staring into space, neither seeing, nor hearing, with the image of her teen-age son impressed firmly in her minds eye.

He had been killed in a Palestinian firefight with Israeli troops near one of the settlements on a night when the moon shone in a cloudless sky, offering more than enough light to aim weapons by.

The Israeli mother could not be consoled by her teary eyed husband, who tried to convince her that the son's death was a sacrifice for Israel, and that the son died for a sacred cause.

She sat stiffly on the chair, not moving, even though the air conditioner blew cold air through the room, refusing to partake in the kosher breakfast on the table before her. All she could think of was the babe she once suckled, the babe that grew into a fine boy, and the boy that grew into a situation where he was forced to act as a man.

She hated whomever had brought this terrible event to pass, no matter whom or what he was, no matter that the event was described as being glorious by those who had no part in it. This was the painful grieving she was experiencing ever since the news of her son's death was brought to her. She could not weep, she could not wail, all of her grief would be poured out later when her son was placed in his last resting place.

Could one mother hate, truly hate, the other, in their sadness, in their grief, in their needless loss?

Reporters Without Borders Issues Report on Palestinian Journalist's Death

PARIS: Reporters Without Borders and Damocles Network, an organisation which combats impunity, today released the report of their joint on-site investigation into the fatal bullet injury sustained by Palestinian press photographer Imad Abu Zahra on 11 July 2002 in Jenin, in the Occupied Territories.

Abu Zahra was hit in the leg and died the following day as a result of this injury. The report's findings are as follows : The curfew had been lifted that day in Jenin, and the streets were calm. The gunfire that hit Abu Zahra was Israeli, and had not been preceded by any warning. While Abu Zahra was not wearing anything that identified him as a journalist, there was another journalist beside him who was wearing a bulletproof vest marked "Press". These two civilians in no way posed any threat to the Israeli tanks. Contrary to undertakings given, the Israeli army's enquiry was either non-existent or very slipshod.

On the basis of these findings, Reporters Without Borders and Damocles Network have made several recommendations to the Israeli authorities. They call on the army to conduct a thorough enquiry to establish responsibility in this incident and to adopt appropriate sanctions against the soldiers who were too quick to resort to gunfire. Reporters Without Borders and Damocles Network reminds the Israeli authorities that they must "respect international humanitarian law concerning the conduct of hostilities, which entails distinguishing military targets from civilians, whatever the circumstances".


The evidence gathered in the course of the enquiry in Jenin from 19 to 25 July includes a video recording made during the incident, the testimonies of a total of 10 Jenin inhabitants and foreigners who were present, and the Israeli army's official reaction. Abu Zahra's death took place against a background of deteriorating press freedom in Israel and the Palestinian territories, due especially to the worsening security conditions in which journalists operates, above all since operation "ramparts" began on 29 March. Since the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, two journalists have been killed and 46 have been injured by gunfire in the Occupied Territories.

Friday August 30, 2002

Palestinian Security Minister Calls For End of Suicide Bombings

RAMALLAH (PC): The Palestinian minister in charge of security has allegedly called for an end to suicide bombings against Israel, calling them "murders for no reason."

Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh says he is involved in an effort to convince Palestinian groups to halt their campaign of suicide bombings against Israel.

He says that he has delivered this message in talks with the leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other groups.

Yehiyeh, who is in overall charge of Palestinian security, made his comments to the Israeli daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, in an interview published Friday.

He told the newspaper that the attacks are, "contrary to Palestinian tradition, against international law and harm the Palestinian people."

Yehiyeh allegedly accused those who recruit Palestinians for such missions of exploitation.

Palestinian groups, supportive of suicide bombings argue that if Israel doesn't receive equally devastating blows, it will continue with its deadly policies against Palestinians with no hesitation. They say that while the international community has failed to provide any form of protection for the Palestinian people, Palestinians should be allowed to fight for themselves, using any means necessary.

The use of suicide bombings was first employed in the early 1990’s, over 20 years following the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

There has been a three-week lull in suicide bombings inside Israel, but the Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians is yet to stop. Yesterday, a Palestinian woman, her two sons and a relative were killed by Israeli tank shells in the Gaza City area.

For over two months, Israeli troops have been based in and around most Palestinian self-ruled enclaves of the West Bank, imposing restrictions and travel bans that are crippling the territory's economy. Since then, Israel have killed and wounded scores of Palestinians, mostly civilians.

Barenboim to Lead Palestinian, Israeli Orchestra

BRUSSELS (AFP): Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim is to lead an orchestra of Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians in a concert for Middle East peace in Strasbourg next week, the European Parliament announced.

It said the parliament's president, Pat Cox, would introduce Monday's concert, which will be attended by numerous Israeli and Palestinian personalities.

The European Parliament is based the eastern French city of Strasbourg.

Last year Barenboim broke one of Israel's greatest cultural taboos by playing the music of Richard Wagner in Israel.

He is also scheduled to lead an orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians at a concert in Berlin Sunday.

Barenboim was due to play a concert in the West Bank Palestinian city of Ramallah in March while it was surrounded by the Israeli army, but the concert was cancelled at the last minute because of 'security concerns'.

Thursday August 29, 2002

Israel ‘Investigating’ Murder of Palestinian Mother and Sons

GAZA CITY: Four people, including a mother and two of her sons, were killed late Wednesday, during an Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip. Israeli tanks have fired on the coastal village, Sheikh Ajli, in the Gaza Strip.

Medical personnel in the area report casualties, including the deaths of a mother and two of her sons.
The spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces says the incident is “being investigated.“

For the past two days, Israel has been deploying army, naval and air forces to foil what it says is a Palestinian attempt to smuggle arms into Gaza by sea. Israeli media said that upon examination the containers were apparently refrigerators and not weapons caches. The army had no immediate comment.

Israeli tanks moved into Palestinian territory, near the illegal militant outpost of Netzarim, cutting off a main road, as Israeli gunboats patrolled the coastline.

Earlier, one Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces near the Gush Katif bloc of Jewish settlements, also in the Gaza Strip.

Tuesday, Israel called off high-level talks with Palestinian officials on a security plan, citing continuing violence in the territory.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer says he expects the Palestinians to be vigorous in halting what he calls "terrorism and violence, as well as smuggling [of arms] by sea and on land."

A spokesman for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, accuses Israel of abandoning an agreement to withdraw its troops from Palestinian self-rule areas.

Top Israeli Army Officer Urges Deportation of Palestinians

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported that a top Israeli military officer urging Israel's High Court to adopt legislations that would rule the deportation of Palestinian residents, whom relatives have carried out attacks against Israel.

"Without being racist... if you take an Arab's land and his house, it means he has something to lose," Ha'aretz quoted Brigadier General Yitzhak Gershon, the commander of Israel occupation forces in the West Bank.

"The state should enact legislation explicitly permitting the deportation of' [activists'] relatives should the [Israeli] High Court of Justice rule such moves illegal under current law", Gershon urged yesterday.

The Israeli High Court is currently considering petitions by three relatives of Palestinian activists against army's plan to deport them from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.

"The deportations must be approved," Gershon stated, alleging that "If [Israel] wants to defend itself, it must, if necessary, enable this through legislation."

Gershon, who said that house demolitions and deportations hurt the activists' families, added, "Until now, he didn't think he had anything to lose. Now a process of declining motivation is taking place."

Israeli government has recently adopted a new plan based on transferring relatives of activists from the West Bank to Gaza, demolishing their families' homes, confiscating or destroying their families' property and vehicles, as well as depriving them of financial support.

Human rights groups warned that such measures could be regarded as war crimes under the Geneva Conventions. Groups, such as Amnesty and B'Tselem, added that demolishing activists' homes, and carrying out hundreds of punitive demolitions, as Israeli authorities had routinely done in the past, is also in direct contravention with the same conventions. (PMC)

Wednesday August 28, 2002

UK Chief Rabbi Says Israeli Policy Incompatible with Judaism

LONDON: The Chief Rabbi of Britain Jonathan Sacks harshly criticized Israel in an interview published Tuesday in The Guardian, saying that the current situation in Israel has caused the country to adopt a stance "incompatible" with the deepest ideals of Judaism and that the current Palestinian conflict is corrupting Israeli culture.

"You cannot ignore a command that is repeated 36 times in the Mosaic books: 'You were exiled in order to know what it feels like to be an exile.' I regard that as one of the core projects of a state that is true to Judaic principle. I regard the current situation as nothing less than tragic, because it is forcing Israel into postures that are incompatible in the long-run with our deepest ideals," Sacks said.

Sacks said that "there are things that happen on a daily basis which make me feel very uncomfortable as a Jew." He said that he was "profoundly shocked" at the recent reports of IDF soldiers smiling while posing for photographs over the corpses of dead Palestinians.

"There is no question that this kind of prolonged conflict, together with the absence of hope, generates hatreds and insensitivities that in the long run are corrupting to a culture," he said.

Asked if he would join other rabbis who have described the IDF occupation of the territories as immoral, Sacks said that already in 1967, after the Six Day war he "was convinced that Israel had to give back all the land for the sake of peace. My father, bless him, was convinced that Israel's neighbors would never make peace. Thirty five years later, I think we were both right."

Sacks also revealed in the interview, that he met one of Iran's highest-ranking religious leaders, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi-Amoli in New York in 2000.

"We established within minutes a common language, because we take certain things very seriously: we take faith seriously, we take texts seriously. It's a particular language that believers share." A language, Sacks said, which most Muslims feel the west is incapable of understanding.

Sacks said that he would not sit and talk with people "who kill those with whom they disagree." He said that he would not sit down with a would-be suicide bomber. "In order to listen, I have to be alive," he said.

Gaza Neighborhood Raided

GAZA CITY (PMC): Israeli occupation ground and naval forces raided a coastal area of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, overshadowing efforts to restart security meetings aiming at ending the Israeli re-occupation of the West Bank main cities.

Palestinian Public Security Directorate said 11 Israeli occupation tanks and APCs stormed before dawn the coastal village of Sheikh Ejleen, just south of Gaza City, under a barrage of heavy gunfire and tank shells.

The sources added that Israeli naval forces on Gaza coast as well as helicopters took part in the said incursion by firing heavily on opposite Palestinian residential buildings. No injuries were reported.

Such Israeli occupation invasion of a populated Gaza neighborhood comes for the first time in a 23-months Intifada, said the sources.

Also, Israeli occupation naval forces prevented Palestinian naval police boats from getting off the Gaza shores unless they are notified.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces injured early before dawn a Palestinian child in the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Khan Younis.

Palestinian medical sources said Solaiman Khaled Alsadi,4 years, was injured with a shrapnel in his chest as Israeli occupation forces, stationed at the entrance of the Jewish settlement of Navaih Dikalim, opened heavy machineguns on Palestinian civilians' houses in the nearby Khan Younis refugee camp.

Palestinians Fear Agricultural Catastrophe in Occupied Territories

RAMALLAH: Palestinian Minister of Agriculture Rafeeq al-Natsha on Monday warned of an agricultural catastrophe and said that Palestinian losses in agriculture have reached one billion US dollars in the last two years.

The Israeli policy of closures and reoccupation of Palestinian cities and villages "would lead to an agricultural and economic catastrophe in Palestinian territories," al-Natsha told Al Ayyam daily on Monday.

"The Israeli army incursions and reoccupation of cities within the last two years had stopped the implementation of many funded projects in the agriculture field," said al-Natsha.

Refuting repeated announcements by Israeli "Defense" Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, who claimed that the Israeli occupation army was not fighting the Palestinian people but the "militants," al-Natsha said: "The current situation of the agricultural field in the West Bank and Gaza Strip shows clearly that all the Israeli claims of easing the tough security measures are not true."

Only in the Gaza Strip the Israeli army had bulldozed about 7,000 donums (657 hectares) of Palestinian agricultural areas and cut off 113,664 olive, citrus, guava and grape trees and destroyed 100 greenhouses since October 2000, the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement on Sunday.

PA Renews Call for International Observers

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: The Palestinian Authority (PA) called Monday for international observers to monitor both sides of the joint security plan, concluded on August 18 and frozen by the Israeli side a few days later, for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the reoccupied Palestinian territories.

"I call for international observers to overlook the Israeli withdrawal from reoccupied Palestinian areas and guarantee the Palestinian Authority will assume its responsibilities in all fields," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP Monday.

Erakat was speaking after a meeting with European Union Middle East envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos, who briefed him on the latest meeting of the international task force including the so-called Middle East quartet.

The Israeli army pulled out of the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem and was due to withdraw from Hebron next, but has since then frozen plans to extend its withdrawal to other towns. (PMC)

Denmark to Present New Middle East Peace Plan

BRUSSELS: Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller is to present a new peace plan for the middle East Friday during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Denmark. The current Danish EU presidency is behind the new plan, Denmark radio reported Wednesday.

The goal of the plan is to establish a Palestinian state in the year 2005. The plan has been made in cooperation especially with
Germany, France and Great Britain, and is also backed by US.

The plan also indicates EU's intention to play an active part in solving the conflict.

The radio said Moeller told Danish paper Berlingske Tidende that the peace plan has been divided into three stages: First and foremost a security agreement must be made between Israeli and the Palestinian to stop the violence.

Secondly, Palestinians must carry out a number of profound reforms towards an independent administration of justice.

Finally, negotiations must be made to establish the final borders between Israel and the new Palestinian State.

Parallel with this process an international peace conference supporting the new plan must be held, it said. (IRNA)

Tuesday August 27, 2002

Ministry of Health Warns From Re-emerging of Infectious Diseases

RAMALLAH (PMC): Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH) revealed in a report on the health situation in the Palestinian territories that malnutrition among children under 5 years old is increased by 125.6%, in comparison with 2000. Out of the total malnutrition cases, about 21%, are suffering from severe and moderate malnutrition.

The prevalence rate of anemia is 43% among pregnant women, 68.2% among infants aged 9 months and 54.4% among children aged 6-36 months.
Recurrent disconnection of electricity and difficulties in vaccines transportation due to roads closure and curfews will affects the viability of vaccines and this will create a cohort of infants and children that are susceptible for infectious diseases that are still under control as measles and poliomyelitis.

MOH warns the whole international community from re-emerging of infectious diseases that threatening not only infants and children within Palestine, but also children in all neighboring countries as infectious diseases do not respect borders or checkpoints.

Further, MOH indicated an alarming deterioration in the Palestinian mental health where visits to mental health clinics recorded a noticeable increase.

MOH Appeals to the International Community to stop the Israeli aggression against health teams and institutions.

MOH appeals to the whole international community to protect the Palestinians medical teams and institutions, and save the Palestinian children and women from the deterioration of health conditions caused by the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Monday August 26, 2002

Palestinian Economy is 'Almost Completely Destroyed': Report

RAMALLAH: An official report, issued recently by the Abu Dhabi-base Monetary Fund (AMF), revealed that Israel's occupation of Palestinian cities and towns have smashed the Palestinian economic backbone by destroying industrial and agricultural facilities.

It added that the Israeli occupation has damaged and crippled government institutions and depriving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of their jobs.

"The Palestinian economy has almost completely been destroyed because of Israeli practices. The destruction covered all sectors including infrastructure and development projects set up after the Oslo agreement," the AMF said in its 2002 report on Arab economic and social conditions.

The report further revealed that Palestinian economy collapsed by nearly two thirds in2001, unemployment soared and the living standards sharply retreated.

"Economic performance collapsed by more than 55 percent while unemployment reached between 80 and 85 percent as a result of the destruction of all sectors and Israel's policy of depriving the Palestinian workers from their jobs."

The Palestinian Gross National Product (GNP) also tumbled from nearly$5.46 billion to only $2.12 billion, pushing the Palestinian per capita income from around $1,420 to$422, a decrease that effected wide sectors of the community.

The report, which pointed out that the Palestinian public sector is hardly functioning, warned that the economy in general reached a stage of full stoppage in 2001.

Systematic Israeli incursions into the Palestinian farms and destruction of trees have sharply depressed agricultural output. In value, the agricultural sector declined to around$176 million last year from $275 million in 2000.

"The decline in farming output was caused by Israel's destruction of more than 220,000 dunums and 500,000 olive, palm and citrus trees in addition to destruction of water wells and irrigation systems and barring the entry of fertilizers and farming equipment. Israel has also killed thousands of cattle, banned animal fodder and prevented fishing," the report revealed.

The industrial sector was also devastated during the past 22 months of Israeli aggression, the report indicated. It added the industrial sector's contribution to the GDP dived to only eight percent in 2001 to reach just $117 million from $824 million. The decline had a serious impact on jobs, with the number of workers plummeting from 82,000 to only 17,000.

"This was a result of direct damage to factories and workshops by Israeli occupation forces and measures to bar spare parts and other production requirements."

Regarding the damage that was inflicted to the trade sector, as a result of Israeli siege, the report revealed, "Palestinian exports tumbled from around $857 million in 2000 to only $110 million in 2001 while imports dived from $3.5 billion to $970 million. From more than 20 per cent, the exports plunged to seven percent of the GDP."

"Such developments had an immediate effect on the Palestinian public revenues, which collapsed to only$170 million from $964 million. This means revenues accounted only for 17 percent of the expenditure and almost all of them were incurrent spending as no funds were channeled into investment and development projects," it added.

Finally, the report estimated that the "Palestinians need between $7-8 billion to revive the economy, rebuild the infrastructure, and find jobs for their people." (PMC)

Sunday August 25, 2002

Israeli Army Admits Soldiers Ransacked Palestinian Towns, Stole Money, Jewelry

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (IAP): For the first time, the Israeli army admitted its occupation troops had ransacked Palestinian homes and businesses and stole money, electronic appliances and jewelry worth millions of dollars.

The Israeli state-run radio on Sunday quoted an army spokesperson as saying that soldiers had indulged in widespread acts of theft in Ramallah and other towns in the West Bank.

The army official described the phenomenon as “worrying” and “disgraceful.”

“This worrying phenomenon brings shame to the Israeli Defense forces,” the spokesman was quoted as saying.

He hinted that these acts were still taking place in the West Bank with the knowledge of the Israeli government and army officials.

Palestinian and human rights groups have documented hundreds of incidents in which Israeli soldiers manning roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the West Bank and Gaza stole money and other valuables from Palestinian passengers at gunpoint.

The soldiers reportedly threaten their victims with arrest, and in a number of cases with, death, in case they complain to the police.

It is widely believed that thousands of other similar cases go unreported for fear of reprisals by the soldiers.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government gave the Israeli army a complete freedom to “act as deemed fit” in Palestinian towns.

Eyewitnesses and some reporters spoke of wild acts of theft and vandalism by the soldiers during which Palestinian businesses were broken into by soldiers who stole appliances and other valuables which Palestinians say were worth millions of dollars.

The Israeli army said then it would investigate the “reports” but did next to nothing to punish the soldier or return the stolen property to the rightful proprietors.

Eight Years After Hebron Massacre, Another Goldstein Plots Florida Remake

JERUSALEM: They share the same profession, the same nationality and even the same name. Before his arrest in Florida, Robert Goldstein was about to follow in the footsteps of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslims in a Hebron mosque eight years ago.

Parallel pictures of the two Goldsteins were splashed across the daily Maariv's centre-spread and most Israeli newspapers drew a parallel between the two Jewish extremists in their Sunday editions.

Doctor Robert Goldstein, 37, was arrested by US security services Friday on suspicion of planning to bomb mosques and Islamic centres, after a huge arsenal of around 40 weapons and 30 explosive devices was found at his Florida home.

A typed list of approximately 50 Islamic places of worship in the Tampa and St. Petersburg areas was also found, and the doctor was still being questioned Sunday.

On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein sprayed automatic gunfire on worshippers praying in a mosque in the Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy site in both Islam and Judaism, killing 29 Muslims before being lynched.

The 1994 massacre was widely condemned in Israel, but extremist Jewish settlers have since turned Baruch Goldstein into an icon of their struggle against the Arabs.

His tomb became a pilgrimage destination for some far-right supporters, and a book singing his praise and written by an extremist rabbi has been circulating on the black market.

Baruch Goldstein's grave was symbolically dug at the entrance of the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron, at the end of Meir Kahana street, named after the founder of the anti-Arab Kach terrorist organization.

Following the 1994 massacre, Kach was officially outlawed over charges of incitement to racial hatred, but its militants have continued to be openly active, calling for Palestinians to be expelled from the entire "land of Israel", including the West Bank, and accusing successive Israeli governments of weakness or even treason.

Only after a group of Jewish extremists close to the Kach party were caught on April 30 preparing an anti-Palestinian attack near a school did the police carry out some arrests.

A few weeks earlier, a bomb attack which had also targeted a Palestinian school in east Jerusalem had been claimed by an underground extreme-right group.

Bloodshed was averted when two other bombs were defused on the same site, while a fourth one was also discovered nearby.

Since the intifada erupted on September 28, at least 12 Palestinians have been killed by Jewish extremists, B'Tselem said, adding that in most cases the killers were 'not found'.

Official Israeli reports have expressed concern at the impunity of some of the most militant settlers, especially those in Hebron.

Letter To A Pilot

By Uri Avnery for Palestine Chronicle

I have read the interview given by your commander, Major General Dan Halutz, and, like many others in Israel and abroad, I was shocked.

On July 23, one of your comrades (or perhaps you yourself?) dropped a one-ton bomb on a house in a dense residential neighborhood in Gaza. The aim was to execute, without trial, Salah Shehadeh, a Hamas activist. Apart from him, 16 neighbors, including 11 children, were killed. Tens of other men, women and children were wounded.

In school you certainly learned the words of the famous poem by Bialik, the national poet, "Even Satan has not invented the revenge of a little child." I assumed that you are torn by doubt after this act, that you look at your children and tell yourself: "Children are children. How are their children responsible for the situation?"

And here comes your commander and says that you have no pangs of conscience, none whatsoever. I don’t know whether he is telling the truth or slandering you.

The general says that he told you: "Your execution was perfect…You did exactly what you were told to do…You did not deviate one inch left or right…You have no problem."

Those who do have problems with this action and protest against it (like myself) are called by the general "bleeding hearts…a insignificant and vociferous minority…" He accuses us of "daring to use methods of mafia-style blackmail against fighters…treason is forbidden…a paragraph must be found in the law in order to put them to trial in Israel…(this) reminds me of dark time of the Jewish people, when a minority amongst us informed against other Jews." He also condemns "the obsession of some journalists…they are bored…so they jump…"

These extreme utterances do not testify to the mental tranquility of the general, who says that he has "a deep feeling of justice and morality." I would say that on the head of the general, the blue cap is burning.* Each word betrays hysteria.

*An allusion to the Jewish adage: "On the head of the thief, the hat is burning," meaning that his behavior discloses his guilt.

But the style must cause deep anxiety. The words would have sounded natural if uttered by a general in Argentina or Chile during the military dictatorship, or by a Turkish officer about to topple the civilian government. When an Israeli general uses such words against the media and civil society, a red light is turned on. The more so since he was not summarily dismissed but, on the contrary, publicly lauded. Israeli democracy is losing height.

But I do not want to speak with you about Dan Halutz, but about yourself.

Who are you? What are you?

One of the pilots explained to the interviewer, Vered Levy-Barzilai: "(That) is the uniqueness and the beauty of the world of the pilot. You sit up above, quietly, with your wide space. There are no noises, no booms, no shouts of people. You are totally focused on the target, you don’t have the dirt and the horror of the battlefield. You do your thing and head home."

Dan Halutz, too, describes his feelings thus: "If you really want to know what I feel when I release a bomb, I will tell you: I feel a slight bump to the plane as a result of the bomb’s release. A second later it’s gone, and that’s all. That’s what I feel."

"That’s all." Down below horrible things happen, mutilated bodies fly in the air, wounded human beings writhe in pain, people buried under the debris utter their last groan, women scream over the bodies of their children, a scene of hell, not different from the scene of a suicide bombing – and "that’s all". A slight bump to the plane, and then home, to a warm shower and bed.

I must confess that it is hard for me to imagine this experience. I did my combat service in the infantry, I saw who I was shooting at and who was shooting at me; I could at any moment have been wounded (as I was) and killed. It is difficult for me to imagine the experience of a person up in the sky, sowing death and destruction without being in any danger himself.

Is this pilot – you! – afflicted by doubt? Does he sometimes torment himself? Does he ask himself if a certain action is permitted, moral, right? Or does he – you! – become a robot, a "professional" who is proud of his perfect control over the awesome machine-of-death entrusted to him and of the "exact" execution of his orders?

I know that not all pilots are robots. I still see before my eyes Colonel Yig’al Shohat reading from his paper, with a voice trembling with emotion, his historic appeal to his fellow-pilots and pupils in the Air Force to refuse manifestly illegal orders, such as precisely this action in Gaza. Shohat, a war-hero who was shot down over Egypt and whose leg was amputated by an Egyptian surgeon, is the exact opposite of Halutz.

You must decide – to be a human being like Shohat, sensitive to the suffering of others, or a robot like Halutz, who feels a slight bump while he kills dozens of human beings.

The Rules of War were born after the Thirty Years War, one of the most horrible in the annals of Europe, a holocaust in which a third of the German nation was wiped out and two thirds of Germany laid waste. The international conventions are based on the conviction that even in a hard war, when each side is fighting for existence, the commandments of human morality must be kept.

Don’t make it easy for yourself by adopting the primitive slogans of Halutz, who justifies everything by saying that Shehadeh was "evil incarnate", words which betray his ultra-rightist world-view. Shehadeh was not put on trial. None of his alleged acts were proven. He certainly believed that he was serving his people, as you believe that you are serving yours. But even if it were proven that he was a dangerous enemy, this does not justify in any way the killing of his neighbors. The argument that this wholesale killing prevented the killing of Jews is not valid. When the pilot released his bomb he knew for certain that he was killing many people, while Shehadeh’s ability to kill us was only an assumption. On the other hand, it was certain that this killing would lead to acts of revenge, and that much Jewish flood would flow because of it. Furthermore, there is a hell of a difference between a guerilla group and a mighty army acting on behalf of a state.

Under these circumstances, would you have told your commander: "I refuse to fulfill this order, because it is manifestly illegal?" Israeli law and human morality oblige you to do so. But Dan Halutz says: "Refusal to perform a sortie is not part of the rules of my game."

What about the rules of your game?

Saturday August 24, 2002

UN Envoy Stresses Seriousness of Crisis in Occupied Territory

RAMALLAH (PMC): After meeting with top Palestinian and Israeli officials, the UN Secretary-General's humanitarian envoy to the region, Catherine Bertini, stressed the seriousness of the humanitarian crisis in Palestinian population centers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Reporting on the eight-day visit to the Middle East, Bertini, who was sent to assess the needs of the Palestinian People, stressed that if the humanitarian situation is not alleviated, the state of the Palestinian People would continue to deteriorate.

"The rate of unemployment was 65% in the West Bank and 70 in Gaza. Poverty and malnutrition were rampant. Infrastructure was disrupted. Health was deteriorating… the harvest and fishery industries were disrupted, and there was a greater than usual shortage of water." She highlighted in a headquarters press briefing Thursday.

Moreover, Bertini, who asserted that, "there is no disagreement about what we found by any side. There is a very serious humanitarian situation for the people living in Gaza and the West Bank," emphasized that the Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza has made it very difficult for people to work, seek medical aid, farm or obtain other basic services.

Meanwhile, the American envoy, said that Israel allegedly agreed to ease restrictions on reoccupied Palestinian areas, allowing greater access to medical aid and farm jobs.

Furthermore, she stressed that the core of the problem was not having access to jobs or services supplies, as a result of the Israel-imposed choking siege and occupation of cities and towns.

When asked to elaborate on how the condition could deteriorate, she said the effects of the unemployment situation and the lack of access were multiplying. "Families had no income, and their purchase amounts were decreasing. Maybe they were eating meat only once a week or once a month now. That was affecting the nutrition level, which in turn was affected by limitation in the availability of health services."

She further added that not every village had a health center, and people suffered when Israeli occupation soldiers prevented them from traveling to a clinic. Meanwhile, infant mortality rates had increased because mothers did not have attendant care. In addition, Israeli-imposed curfews had disrupted the travel of teachers, health care workers and service recipients alike.

In conclusion, Bertini emphasized that every step taken by Israel to allow movement of people, goods and money will have a "significant, positive, multiplying impact on the humanitarian situation of people living in Gaza and West Bank."

Friday August 23, 2002

Thursday August 22, 2002

Israeli Occupation Troops Kill Mother, Injure Son Near Tulkarm

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (IAP News): The Israeli occupation army on Thursday murdered a mother and seriously injured her son at a village north of Tulkarm. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli troops in the area detonated via remote control a landmine at agricultural field where the woman and her young son were working.

The latest victim of Israeli terror was identified as Amina Said Idris, aged fifty years.

An Israeli occupation spokesman hinted that the explosive device was meant to kill a local Islamic Jihad leader.

The Israeli army murders Palestinian civilians on a daily basis and makes no serious efforts to stop the killing, suggesting that targeting civilians is an established, though undeclared, Israeli policy.

The vast bulk of over 1800 Palestinians killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation and apartheid 23 months ago are civilians and a third of them are children and minors.

Top Palestinian Christian Leader Detained

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli occupation authorities detained a senior Palestinian Christian Orthodox leader today and took him for questioning to a police center in Occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian sources revealed.

Archimandrite Atallah Hanna was taken from his home in the Old City to the Jerusalem district police headquarters following an order by Israel's Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.

Israeli security sources alleged that the Archimandrite is suspected of attempting to meet with heads of "terrorist" organizations and praising Palestinian struggle in comments published previously by the media.

Palestinian Muslim and Christian figures called for the immediate release of Archimandrite Hanna, describing his detention as a violation of the right to religious freedom and free speech.

Marwan Toubasi, the spokesman of the Greek Orthodox community in the West Bank, said Hanna's detention was "part of the Israeli attacks on the religious freedom for Christian and Muslim religious men."

"(It is) an attempt to silence the voice that expresses the pains of his community which is part of the Palestinian people," he added.

Similarly, Sheik Ikrema Sabri, a senior Palestinian religious official stressed, "there are a lot of Israeli rabbis who have extreme opinions against Arabs and the Palestinians and they have been never detained by the Israeli police."

Meanwhile, Ahmad Abdel Rahaman, a senior PNA official, condemned the detention of Archimandrite Hanna adding that it shows that Israeli aggression has "bypassed all red lines by attacking a spiritual and religious figure such as Archimandrite Attalla Hanna."

"The detention of the Archimandrite reveals the true racist nature and assent of the Israeli policy… by putting more restrictions on the Christian and Muslim religious leaders and preventing them from reaching to their holy places," he pointed out.

Finally, Abdel Rahaman called upon the Christian church and its followers all around the world to intervene immediately and pressure Israel's authorities into immediately releasing Archimandrite Hanna. (PMC)

Gaza Carnage Was Morally Correct: Israeli Air Force Commander

TEL AVIV: Israel's air force commander said in an interview Wednesday with the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, that an airstrike on a heavily-populated Gaza neighborhood last July that killed 16 civilians, 10 of whom were children, including a senior Hamas leader, was morally correct.

Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz told the Israeli newspaper that it was "militarily and morally" proper to drop a one-ton bomb on a four-story building, which housed Salah Shehada as well as several other Palestinian families in a crowded residential area, despite the fact that civilians were sure to be killed as well.

On 22 July, an Israeli F-16 fighter jets launched at least one missile at the building in the poverty-stricken Al-Daraj area in Gaza City, in the deadliest assault against its residents which left 16 civilians dead and at least 159 injured. Most of the victims were women and children.

The targeted building, hosting six apartments, was demolished completely leaving dozens of its inhabitants trapped under the rubble, and causing severe damage to at least six nearby inhabited buildings.

Ari Fleischer, a White House spokesman, condemned the deadly assault against Palestinians civilians as "a heavy-handed action" that did not "contribute to peace."

Moreover, Sweden's foreign minister Anna Lindh called the brutal attack "a crime against international law and morally unworthy of a democracy like Israel." Similarly, Roman Prodi, the president of the European commission, condemned the attack as "an act of war" and stressed that it would make progress towards peace "much, much, more difficult."

The air force commander told the newspaper that he was angered by the denunciating voices the attack had raised, adding it was legitimate to strike whom he labeled a 'terrorist' even if innocent people also were killed.

This comes in direct contrast with the degree of furor that rushed across the globe at the Gaza carnage. "An attack that killed thirteen civilians and injured scores was clearly not carried out in a manner that minimized casualties. It should never have gone ahead," said Joe Stork, Washington director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

"In such a crowded civilian area, these deaths and injuries were absolutely foreseeable," he stated.

Meanwhile, Halutz rejected criticism of the occupation army's use of a powerful bomb to kill Shehadeh, saying that if it had used a half-ton bomb it would have had to drop two because one could have missed the target.

He did not mention the fact that extra-judicial killing was a crime initself forbidden under all human and international laws.

Halutz's defensive interview drew criticism from Israel's leading peace movements, Gush Shalom, who called upon Israeli authorities to investigate Halutz along with the commander of the flight squadron and the pilot who dropped a the bomb that ripped fifteen people to pieces in Gaza.

Gush Shalom say the commander and the pilot must have known that the bomb to be used to kill Shehadeh - without a trial - would also be sure to kill a large number of innocent people in the area. These officers had a duty to refuse to carry out what was manifestly an illegal order, the peace movement argues. (Palestine Media Center)

Wednesday August 21, 2002

Israeli Occupation Army Attack Civilians in Gaza, Nablus

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (IAP News): Israeli occupation troops, backed by armored personnel carriers and helicopter gunships, on Wednesday attacked a Palestinian refugee camp south of Gaza, killing a Palestinian civilian and injuring five others.

Hospital sources said at least two of the injured were listed in serious condition.

Eyewitnesses said more than ten Israeli tanks and APCs overran the Khan Younis refugee camp in early morning hours for the purpose of demolishing homes, a routine Israeli collective punishment against Palestinians.

The sources said that as the forces were leaving the camp, having destroyed several homes, an Israeli tank fired an artillery shell on a group of onlookers, killing a man identified as Adnan Hasan.

In the West Bank, Israeli occupation troops attacked the Balata refugee camp Wednesday, firing on homes and streets.

Local sources said soldiers carried house-to-house searches for “wanted persons” and weapons and also beat and harassed civilians.

Earlier, the Israeli occupation army assassinated 23-year-old Muhammed Sa’adat, the younger brother of Ahmed Sa’adat, the imprisoned PFLP leader Ahmed Sa’adat.

Palestinian sources described the killing as a “classical assassination.”

The sources denied Israeli claims that the young Sa’adat was carrying a pistol and that he was trying to fire on heavily-armed Israeli soldiers in Ramallah.

“Whenever they commit a murder, they concoct a story to justify their crime,” said Jamil Ibrahim, a neighbor who witnessed the killing.

Sa’adat is the fifth Palestinian to have been murdered by the Israeli occupation army since the Zionist regime and the Palestinian Authority reached a deal on 17 August dubbed as “Bethlehem-Gaza First.”

According to the deal, Israeli occupation troops left Bethlehem and are to leave the PA-run parts of Gaza in return for the restoration of PA security administration in these areas.

Israeli Officials Downplay Agreement, Say Blockade of Palestinian Towns Will Remain

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Officials of the Israeli regime on Wednesday downplayed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority aimed at reducing violence, saying the agreement wouldn’t affect the level of Israeli oppression and persecution of Palestinians.

The Israeli state-run radio quoted advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying that the agreement was only a “stop-gap measure” and was by no means the first step toward diplomatic negotiations with the PA.

The radio quoted Sharon himself as saying that Israeli army withdrawal from the center of the Biblical town of Bethlehem wouldn’t relax the Israeli grip on Palestinians.

“What happened is that we removed a number of jeeps from the streets of Bethlehem, otherwise our forces are encircling the city very tightly and no Palestinian can enter or leave the town,” said Sharon.

Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States, also sought to downplay the agreement.

“This agreement doesn’t mean that we are reverting to Oslo, it is an ad hoc arrangement with people who are now in charge of security on the Palestinian side.”

Dore Gold, also a former ambassador to the United States, said the agreement was in line with Sharon’s position that he was willing to discuss security and humanitarian issues but not politics with the Palestinians.

Earlier, several ministers of Sharon’s coalition government voiced opposition to the agreement and went as far as threatening to leave the government.

However, Sharon seems to have assured them that Israeli repression of the Palestinians will continue unabated irrespective of the agreement with the PA.

'Gaza First' is A Test For Israeli Seriousness': Official

Following the agreement, reached Monday between Palestinian and Israeli security teams, Nabil Abu Rudeinah, President Arafat's Media Advisor, told reporters that implementation of the agreement is "the real test of the seriousness of the negotiations with the Israeli government".

"The most important step following the agreement reached yesterday is to put into action what has been agreed upon and the Israeli pullout of Bethlehem and Gaza during the upcoming 48 hours," he told reporters in Ramallah.

Abu Rudeinah described the agreement as a "significant step that should be followed by other steps including the Israeli pullout from the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip cities so as to move forward in the peace process".

Asked about the seriousness of the Israeli government with regard to translating the "Bethlehem-Gaza First" plan on the ground, Abu Rudeinah confirmed that "the real test is the implementation of the plan and if Israeli will adhere to it or procrastinate as usual".

He further highlighted that the Palestinian demands are obvious: withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces, bringing an end to incursions as well as assassinations and deliberate killings. (PMC)

Israeli Diplomat Warns of Deteriorating EU-Israel Ties

BRUSSELS: Israel's Ambassador to the European Union, Harry Kney-Tal, is worried and frustrated over the widening gap between Europe and the Zionist state. Kney-Tal, 58, who completes his term in Brussels in a few weeks, told the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, that political and intellectual gap between Israel and Europe is widening.

Without corrective steps, Israel is liable to end up boycotted as a pariah state, like South Africa in the days of apartheid, Ha'aretz quoted Kney-Tal saying on the paper's English-language website on Wednesday.

European Union states, and Belgium in articular, have in recent years turned into trouble spots for Israeli diplomats.

Kney-Tal said that relations between Europe and Israel have also worsened because the EU leadership "recoils from information which contradicts its value systems and perceptions.''

"After the Second World War, Europe decided to abandon the use of force as a means to resolve disputes, and to set up the European Union, which operates on the basis of shared interests ... What drives them [the Europeans] crazy is states in the world like the U.S. and Israel, which don't recognize purely rational-legal rules of the game, and which believe that there are situations which require them to exercise their right of self-defense by resorting to the use of massive military force.

The European Union is proud that it enabled the Palestinian Authority to survive in recent years, in a period when Israel enforced severe economic sanctions against it.

The Israeli diplomat fears that there is an accelerating process of delegitimization of Israel, which is gradually being perceived as a crude, brutal, and racist country that tramples on civil rights.

"I'm worried about the fact that Israel and Europe have not been able to build a framework which enables and facilitates Jewish-Christian dialogue," says Kney-Tal.

As Kney-Tal sees it, Israel has no choice but to "draw Europe into a serious, genuine dialogue, one which will deal not only with ongoing events, but also with deeper levels." (IRNA)

Tuesday August 20, 2002

WASHINGTON: Academics, students and professors at American universities are conducting a widespread campaign calling for the solidarity of the Palestinian cause by boycotting American institutions and firms that engage in business in Israel.

Ivy League universities like Harvard, MIT and Princeton, among forty others, are modeling their effort, on the divestment movement that helped topple the South African apartheid regime.

Media sources reported a conference for students from across the US is scheduled next fall at the University of Michigan, where methods of escalating the campaign will be discussed.

"It worked once to produce peace, justice and reconciliation, and I believe it can work again." Media sources quoted Francis A. Boyle, a University of Illinois professor of international law and an advocate of this campaign, as saying. He also added he expected the campaign to be difficult because of Israel's firm ally, the United States.

Meanwhile, Jabr Wishah, a Palestinian human rights activist in the Gaza Strip, who also spent 15 years of his life in an Israeli prison, highlighted the comparison between Israel's racist, aggressive measures and the apartheid system in South Africa.

Previously, Israel had started erecting a wall segregating the occupied West Bank from Israel, engulfing more Palestinian land in doing so.

Wishah recalls chatting with Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who went from prisoner to president, when he visited Gaza three years ago. Wishah, who compared notes with Mandela on Israeli and South African interrogation tactics, applauded the divestment campaign, saying, "If in South Africa they reached a peaceful solution, it can be achieved here as well."

Students on US campuses are calling upon Israel, in the petitions they have been circulating by email, to withdraw from the Palestinian occupied territory to the 1967 border lines, return to negotiations, stop illegal settlement-building and improve relations with the Palestinians.

Divestment lists being circulated include firms like McDonald's, Hewlett Packard, General Electric and the telecommunications company AT&T.

Divestment campaigns have previously attracted many supporters, including South African Nobel laureate and former Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who drew parallels between Palestinians under Israeli occupation and blacks who lived in segregated areas during South Africa's apartheid regime, in a pro-divestment column published in American newspapers last June.

Similarly, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said she was encouraged. "It will begin to get people to question their assumptions," Ashrawi said, noting American Jews were among the "people of courage and wisdom" who have signed divestment petitions.

One is Ilan Pappe, a Jewish Israeli political scientist, who drew clear parallels between his country and apartheid South Africa. "The only thing that can end the Israeli occupation is outside pressure," Pappe stressed.

LAW Files Petition Against Construction of Israel's Apartheid Wall: Release

RAMALLAH (LAW): On Monday, August 19, 2002, LAW's lawyer Aazem Bishara filed a petition at the office of the Attorney General of the Israeli army, demanding an interim injunction against three Israeli military orders which allow actual land and property confiscation for the purpose of constructing Israel's apartheid wall.

The petition was filed on behalf of 34 Palestinian families from various villages located along the 'Green Line', the demarcation line between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, including Deir al- Ghusoun, Shweika, Tel, Farasin, Baqa Sharkia and Kafin. The wall will be either build on their land, separates them from their land, prevents access to their land, or benefit from their land.

The petition demands that the Attorney General annuls the three military orders, 17/2002/T, 20/2002/T, 22/2002/T, which were issued by Israel's military commander of the Westbank, Moshe Kaplinski, which state that the Israeli army will 'cease' (confiscate) these lands until December 31, 2005.

The petition demands an interim injunction to prevent the start of the construction until a decision concerning the matter has been made. In the case, the demands are rejected, the petition argued that Israel's apartheid wall would be built on the June 4, 1967 demarcation line and not on occupied Palestinian land, or on the expense of Palestinians who own deeds proving ownership of the land since the Jordanian administration and the British Mandate.

The military orders and the construction of the wall violates basic principles of international (humanitarian) law. The Hague Regulations prohibit the occupying power to undertake permanent changes in the occupied area, unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.

The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip ('Oslo II') of September 28, 1995, provides that 'neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations'. Moreover, the agreement states that 'the two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, the integrity and status of which will be preserved during the interim period'. Moreover, territorial jurisdiction is defined as the Gaza Strip territory, except for the settlements and Israeli installations, and the West Bank territory, except for Area C which, 'except for the issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations, will be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction in three phases'.

Israel started preparations for the construction of its apartheid wall on June 16, 2002, near the village Salem, west of Jenin, towards the north, reaching Tulkarem. Israeli officials have stated that the wall will be finished by the end of this year. The wall will separate fourteen villages and isolate them from their agricultural lands. The barrier will be 115 kilometres (70 miles) long, it will include fences, trenches and security patrols. And this is only the first phase, eventually it is meant to extend the full 350-km (220 mile) length of the West Bank.

LAW believes that the construction of the apartheid wall, including land confiscations for the purpose of the construction of the wall, violates basic principles of international (humanitarian) law.

The form of apartheid Israel applies against Palestinians fulfils all elements of the crime of apartheid as defined under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1976), which expressly states that the crime of apartheid 'shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa' (art.2).

LAW condemns these flagrant violations of human rights and calls on the international community to condemn racial segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. LAW urges the international community to take effective measures to dismantle Israel's apartheid system, lift the closure and siege on Palestinian towns and villages and and ensure the freedom of movement.
 

Monday August 19, 2002

Saturday August 17, 2002

Israeli Gunfire Cuts Short Boy’s School Dream

GAZA CITY: Five-year-old Ayman Fares could hardly wait for his first day of school but Israeli gunfire cut short the Palestinian boy’s dreams, his mother said yesterday as his flag-wrapped body headed for an early grave.

“They stole his happiness and ours,” said Sumaya Fares, weeping as she held up a pair of Ayman’s jeans and a blue shirt while receiving mourners at her house at the Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, shortly before the burial.

Sumaya said she had already bought Ayman his school uniform and he was keen to begin a major new stage of his life, when shots fired by the Israeli Army into his refugee camp district cut him down on Thursday.

“Ayman asked me to buy him a pencil, school bag and copy books. He was happy to be joining the school.” The school year starts in early September in Palestinian territories.

Hundreds of Palestinians marched for the child’s funeral yesterday. Hospital officials said Ayman died from a bullet in the back of the head. Palestinian security sources said an Israeli tank approached a residential area on the edge of the camp and opened fire without reason.

The camp, flanked on two sides by a compound of Jewish settlements, has been a flashpoint for Palestinian-Israeli violence during the 22-month-old Palestinian uprising for independence in Gaza and the West Bank.

The child’s grandfather, Nadid Fares, suffered a light bullet wound in the hand as he and a neighbor tried to get the boy’s body out of the area to the hospital. “There was no mistake. Soldiers knew where they directed their weapons,” he said. “People here live in terror. Israel tanks open fire daily against our houses and fields,” added the old man, who has land close to the army-protected Jewish settlement of Gani Tal.

At least one-third of the Palestinian deaths in the intifada have been people under the age of 18.

New International Red Cross Program Offers Relief for Palestinian Families

GENEVA: The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, has launched a relief program in the occupied Palestinian territories. The program is targeting 20,000 families, or about 120,000 people, in nine cities and towns.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says about 20 percent of Palestinian city dwellers will benefit from this assistance program. It says it decided to start this operation because thousands of vulnerable people no longer are able to meet their basic needs.

The ICRC says nearly two years of violence, curfews and closures have seriously undermined the economy. It says 70 percent of the Palestinian population now lives below the poverty line.

Patrick Vial is Deputy Head of Red Cross Operations for the Middle East and North Africa. He says the agency does not plan to hand out goods to the Palestinians. Instead, he says vouchers will be given to the 20,000 families every month.

"They will be able to go to selected traders: traders selected by ICRC and they will be exchanging their voucher for goods, food and non-food items in these particular shops," Vial explained.

"The interest of this particular program is that it provides a certain margin of choice in the selection of the goods they want to exchange with the voucher... It somehow preserves an amount of dignity for those people who can choose whatever they need most in daily life."

Each of the families will receive a monthly voucher worth $90 (US). Vial says this will provide for half of a family's basic monthly requirements.

Besides helping the poorest people, he says, the voucher system also will stimulate local businesses.

He explains that among the approved list of goods are items which must be procured from the local rural communities. The Red Cross Official says the program will last only until the end of the year.

"The reason is that the ICRC is not willing to engage in a process whereby the Palestinian population will become entirely dependent upon humanitarian aid," he said.

"The idea is not to render those people totally dependent. The Palestinian population has the means, and it was the case before the situation today, to face its own needs, without such external aid. "

Vial says that, under international law, the Israeli government has the obligation to ensure adequate supplies of food, medicines and other essential items for the people under its occupation.

Israeli TV Reveals Plan to Expel Arafat by Force

TEL AVIV: An Israeli plan that received initial approval to expel Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was revealed by Israeli television Friday. Palestinian officials reacted with outraged Saturday to the report, while Israeli spokesmen refused to comment.

Israel's Channel Two revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had previously approved a military plan to expel President Yasser Arafat by force from the occupied Palestinian territory, but that plan was rejected by the cabinet.

According to the report, Sharon and former chief of staff, Shaul Mofaz, had discussed in April the military plan, which was not revealed until now, and then presented to the cabinet. During the discussion of the plan, several ministers argued that the damage it would cause Israel's government would exceed its so-called benefits.

Palestinian officials were outraged Saturday by the Israeli television report. "We denounce the mere thinking of such despicable ideas," media sources quoted the Minister of Local Government, Saeb 'Erekat, as saying from Egypt.

"At a time when we are trying to revive the peace process the Israeli government is thinking such ideas."

Orders were issued for a special occupation military force unit to make the necessary preparations to capture President Arafat inside his Ramallah headquarters and expel him, the report relayed. The plan called for occupation troops to penetrate his besieged headquarters, to take control of the building and kidnap the President.

In what seems to be a scene from an action movie, a helicopter was to deport President Arafat nonstop to a neighboring Arab state that does not have diplomatic relations with Israel nor close ties with the United States, Israel's premier ally, the report further revealed.

The President would be left in a desolate area, and only after Israel's aircraft returned 'safely' to Israel would the Arab country be informed of the President's presence there.

Israel's occupation army and a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister refused to comment on the report.

Pope Calls for Divine Mercy to Help End Middle East Bloodshed

VATICAN CITY: Pope John Paul II in Krakow, Poland on Saturday appealed for an end to wars in the world and called for divine mercy to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Where hatred and the thirst for revenge dominate, where war brings suffering and death to the innocent, there the grace of mercy is needed in order to settle human minds and to bring about peace," the pope said in reference to the Middle East conflict.

"How greatly today's world needs God's mercy. In every continent, from the depth of human suffering, a cry for mercy seems to rise up," he said on the second day of a four-day visit to his native Poland quoted by Vatican press release.

Friday August 16, 2002

Powell: 'Security Talks' With Palestinians On Track

WASHINGTON: CIA officers are meeting with Palestinian officials in an effort to frame a new security plan for the West Bank linked to a possible Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank it has been occupying for two months now, media sources relayed.

Sources said the talks in the region Tuesday are part of a process by CIA Director George J. Tenet to blend the findings of a CIA assessment team with a plan proposed to him Saturday by the Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Al-Yehya.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell averred Tuesday that the plans for Palestinian security reforms were on track and that the talks between the Palestinian interior minister and Central Intelligence Agency chief were very 'positive and productive', media sources reported.

Last week, Al-Yehya and two other Palestinian Cabinet ministers held talks at the White House and the State Department, in addition to Yehya's meeting with Tenet last Saturday.

The CIA's follow-up this week is reported to be aimed at reviewing security measures proposed by the minister and also the findings of a CIA team that would soon report on a security assessment it conducted in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Powell said he spoke to Tenet on Tuesday about his previous meeting on Saturday with Al-Yehya, where the CIA director said he is committed to moving ahead with a reorganized Palestinian security force. Meanwhile, Al-Yehya stressed that security arrangements were impossible to carry out as long as Israel's occupation of the West Bank persisted.

"They [the Palestinian] had good meetings with Tenet on Saturday and I talked to George this morning after seeing one account that suggested they did not," Powell said.

As a result, Powell added, he expected Tenet to be in touch with the Palestinians again to put a plan in motion.

According to AP, the account Powell referred was apparently a New York Times article Tuesday that quoted officials from the Bush administration as saying Tenet was skeptical about prospects for a rapid organization of a new Palestinian security force.

A CIA official said the article "mischaracterizes the director's views."
In an interview with the Arab satellite news network, Al-Jazeera Friday, President Arafat said that US, Egyptian and Jordanian officials would train Palestinian security services members as well as oversee the reform of the entire security apparatus.

"There is an agreement that Americans, Egyptians and Jordanians will come and administer the training of our security branches," said the Palestinian president, speaking from his surrounded West Bank compound. (PMC)

Thursday August 15, 2002

PA Announces Financial Reform

RAMALLAH: Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad has announced a major reform in how the Palestinian Authority handles its money. He has formed a holding company to oversee all funds and assets.

He says the holding company would ensure transparency and accountability in Palestinian financial dealings.

Fayad's announcement comes a day after Israel said it would release an additional $14-million of frozen Palestinian tax revenue. Israel released a similar amount in frozen Palestinian funds late last month. Since the Palestinian uprising - or Intifada - began nearly two years ago, Israel has withheld more than $400 million in taxes collected for the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials have postponed security talks with the Palestinians until next week. A meeting had been expected Thursday night to discuss Israeli proposals for withdrawing troops from re-occupied Palestinian Authority areas in the Gaza Strip.

The PA accuses Israel of changing a prior offer to pull out of Gaza and Bethlehem. Palestinian officials fear the proposal could be a Gaza-only withdrawal, leaving Israeli troops with a firm grip on recently re-occupied areas of the West Bank. Israel has killed scores of Palestinians since it reoccupied the West Bank two months ago, and over 1,800 Palestinians since the beginning of the Intifada 2 years ago.

Israel has offered the staged pull-back in exchange for a Palestinian crackdown on resistance groups.

Israeli Minister Describes Using Palestinians as Human Shields as Moral

TEL AVIV: An Israeli extreme right-wing minister has labeled Israel's policy of using Palestinians as human shields "very moral", despite the fact that this illegal measure has cost the lives of many innocent Palestinians.

The comments by Minister without portfolio Effi Eitam, retired brigadier general come one day after an 18-year-old Palestinian was killed when Israeli special forces used the teenager as a human shield to get through to a Hamas activist in the West Bank town of Tubas, near Jenin.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said that soldiers used the neighbor, Nidal Daraghmeh, as a human shield when, on gunpoint, they forced him to do door-to-door calling on residents to leave. Eyewitness reports confirmed that Israeli soldiers killed the teenager.

Last May, the Israeli government responded to several petitions to the Israeli High Court by human rights groups petitioning against the use of human shields.

In the state's response, the occupation army promised it would cease using human shields during what they called "operations", Israeli media sources reported.

Meanwhile, the minister went as far as saying that it is "absolutely more moral" to endanger the life of a Palestinian who happens to live next to the home where the occupation forces are carrying out such an 'operation' than the lives of Israeli soldiers.

Moreover, Eitam rejected the fact that Palestinians, used as human shields are sent in order to attract the fire of the men targeted by occupation soldiers.

The right-wing minister also refused to acknowledge that Palestinians sent in such cases, unlike occupation soldiers, are innocent, unwilling participants of the measures carried out.

His remarks included labeling the entire civilian Palestinian population as "a population that is supporting war."

Wednesday August 14, 2002

IFJ Condemns Israeli Shooting Incident Involving Journalist

BRUSSELS: The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the world's largest journalists' organization, on Tuesday condemned a shooting incident in the West Bank involving an Israeli journalist over the weekend.

Gideon Levy, a correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper, a Haaretz photographer and a representative from the organization Physicians for Human Rights were traveling in an armored taxi when an Israeli soldier opened fire on them in the West Bank. No one was injured.

"This is another example of how journalists are put at risk when military discipline breaks down," said Aidan White, IFJ Secretary General.

"It also shows why every journalist needs armored protection when reporting in this region."

The incident occurred Sunday morning in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, as the taxi, which had Israeli license plates, approached an army post. Shots hit the bulletproof windshield of the taxi.

The Israeli army apologized, and said the soldier and the officer concerned would be put on trial.

The Brussels-based IFJ represents more than 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries. (IRNA)

UN Humanitarian Envoy Begins Mission

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Personal Humanitarian Envoy landed in Tel Aviv, kicking off a mission to assess the nature and scale of the humanitarian crisis in Palestine, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Catherine Bertini met with in Jerusalem with Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, and was also scheduled to meet with staff of the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Eckhard told reporters in New York quoted by UN Information Center (UNIC).

During her eight-day visit, Ms. Bertini will review humanitarian needs in the light of recent developments.

Touring Palestine, Ms. Bertini is expected to meet with senior officials from the Palestine National Authority, Eckhard said.

Tuesday August 13, 2002

By Uri Avnery for Palestine Chronicle

There is a direct telephone connection between heaven and hell. I can prove it.The idea crossed my mind last Sunday, when I was climbing to a snow-covered peak in the alpine region of Italy, where I was the guest at a political conference.

The sun was shining, the temperature hovered around zero centigrade, around me was a breathtaking landscape of white peaks. Far away below, calm cowherds led their animals to their green pasture. Heaven on earth.

And then the cellular phone rang. The call came from Tel-Aviv, where the barometer was climbing to 32 degrees and above. The radio news from Israel, which I managed to receive from time to time, told of people killed and wounded, attacks and retaliation, bombs and bombardments, demolition of homes and deportations, and, on top of that, factory closures, mass dismissals, economic disaster. A real hell.

My colleagues at home called to tell me about an exciting development: that morning, "Haaretz" had published on its front page a hair-raising sensation: "Gush Shalom has threatened officers: We collect material against you for The Hague". (This is the original headline in Hebrew. In the English edition of Haaretz, it was slightly toned down.)

Following the news item, I was told, the prime minister has ordered his obedient servant, the attorney general, to start criminal proceedings against us. The Minister of Justice Me’ir Shitreet, a third-rate politician, declared that we were a "fifth column". The Minister for Communication, Rubi Rivlin, considered by many to be a clown, solemnly asserted that "This is treason!"

Any number of politicians and commentators started a lynch campaign. Expressions like "traitors", "informers", "Capo" (the Jewish "camp police", which served the Nazis in the concentration camps), "Judenrat" (the Jewish committees appointed by the Nazis in the ghettos) were freely bandied about.

There was, indeed, good reason for all this commotion.

At the beginning of the year, the Gush Shalom peace movement, like many people in Israel and abroad, decided that it could no longer ignore the fact that in the course of the IDF operations in the occupied territories terrible acts, violating both Israeli and international law, were being committed. Some of these appeared to be war crimes. We in the Gush decided that it was our duty, as Israeli citizens who bear responsibility for the acts of our government and our army, to raise our voice and deliver a stringent warning.

On Jan. 9 we convened a conference on war crimes in a big hall in Tel Aviv. Several professors of international law and two senior (retired) army officers were on the panel. One of the speakers was a war hero, Air Force Col. Yig’al Shohat, who had been shot down over Egypt and lost a leg. In a voice trembling with emotion, he called upon his comrades, the combat pilots, to refuse to obey illegal orders, such as bombarding civilian neighborhoods.

All the TV and radio stations and the two major newspapers ignored the conference, to which they were invited. It was clear that all of the enlisted media had decided to suppress the issue of war crimes.

That became quite clear when we submitted to Kol Israel, the state-run radio network, a paid ad, informing soldiers about their duty to refuse "manifestly illegal orders" — literally repeating the wording of the judgment of the military court following the Kafr Kassem massacre of 1956. Kol Israel refused to broadcast it. We asked the Supreme Court to order the Broadcasting Authority to air the ad, but the court decided that it was unable to do so.

So we decided to take direct action. We distributed among the soldiers a pocket manual, setting out the prohibitions of the Geneva Convention, which was signed by Israel. Among them: Executions without trial (called "liquidations"), shooting of unarmed civilians, torture, prevention of medical treatment, killing the wounded (called "verification of death"), starvation, deportation.

"Protect yourself against indictment abroad!" the manual said, "As a soldier in an occupation army, you are particularly exposed to indictment for war crimes. Strict adherence to this manual will protect you from arrest and indictment abroad!"

The manual concluded: "Soldier, remember! During your military service, whether on regular or reserve duty, you must refuse manifestly illegal orders. If you have witnessed a war crime, you are duty-bound to report it!"

At the same time we sent individual letters to certain commanders and warned them that their actions might lead in future to their indictment in an Israeli or international court. (There is no statute of limitation on war crimes.) In the letters, we relied solely on material published in the media, especially on boasts made by the officers themselves, who practically incriminated themselves.

Copies were sent to the media, all of whom suppressed the information, as well as to the chief legal officer of the army, who did not take any action.

We warned these senior officers that the material collected by us would be put at the disposal of an Israeli court, if, at any time in the future, the courts start to fulfill their duty, or — as a last resort — to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

One may assume that it was one of these officers who gave the sensational news to the military correspondent of Haaretz. The liberal newspaper, which, until that day, had ignored all the information about our action (as, indeed, about almost all the activities of the peace movements) did publish this story as the main sensation on its front page.

The result was a deluge of defamation. The telephone lines of Gush Shalom activists were inundated with curses and death threats. The radio talk shows competed with each other over who would bring the most fanatical extremists to the microphone, with the hosts egging them on and openly supporting them. Gush activists were suddenly invited to TV and radio interviews, where they were faced with interviewers who behaved like interrogators of prisoners in some Shin-Beth cellar.

Of all the curses thrown at us, the most instructive was "informers". It belongs to the ghetto vocabulary. When Jews were a defenseless community, helplessly exposed to the cruelty of Gentile authorities, a Jew who denounced another Jew to the Goyim was considered the vilest of the vile. The fact that this word is used today, after 54 years of having our state, when we have one of the most powerful armies in the world, shows that many in our country still live in the world of the ghetto. Verily, it seems that it is easier to get the Jews out of the ghetto than to get the ghetto out of some Jews. The judges of the International Criminal Court look to them like a mob of drunken Cossacks intent on carrying out a pogrom.

Our aim is, of course, prevention. We wanted to raise awareness of this subject among the officers and soldiers. We hoped they and their colleagues would take the war crimes issue into consideration while making their plans, supplying perhaps the feather that would turn the scales at the moment of decision. We were resolved to turn this subject into a public issue, so as to put pressure on the political and military leadership.

Actually, the campaign of incitement unleashed against us did serve this very purpose. For a week now, war crimes have become a central subject of the public discourse in Israel. No officer or soldier could avoid giving serious consideration to his deeds or defaults in the occupied territories. Many of them for the first time became aware of what war crimes are and how they might affect their own lives.

From now on, this subject will not disappear from the agenda.

Monday August 12, 2002

NEW YORK: Reacting to comments in the Middle Eastern media, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last weekend clarified that the United Nations will continue dealing with the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, announced the United Nations Information Center here Sunday.

In a statement issued in New York, a spokesman for the Secretary-General recalled that Annan has "repeatedly and consistently" stated that it is up to the Palestinian people to elect their leaders.

The Secretary-General recently made this point during a meeting of the diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East, which comprises the UN, United States, Russian Federation and European Union.

"President Arafat has been elected by the Palestinian people and the United Nations will continue to deal with him in this capacity," said spokesman Fred Eckhard.

"On the same basis, the UN will deal with the leaders elected in the Palestinian elections announced for early next year."

The reports in the Middle Eastern media were prompted by an interview that the Secretary-General gave to Israeli television earlier this week. (IRNA)

Rubinstein Present as Soldiers Abused Children

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PMC): Israeli and international media sources revealed yesterday that Israel's attorney-general, Elyakim Rubinstein, was stationed at the same roadblock in Ramallah where occupation soldiers badly beat Palestinian children last week.

Rubinstein, who served five days at the Kalandia roadblock, north of occupied East Jerusalem, on volunteer service as a reservist, told Israeli newspapers he was on 'duty' Wednesday when three Palestinians, including a minor, were detained, beaten and left bleeding.

The attorney-general said he had noticed that there were Palestinian detainees at the roadblock, but he claimed he did not see any marks or bruises on their bodies.

However, the three Palestinians were beaten so ferociously, a judge at a Jerusalem Magistrate's court called for their release.

"The sight was shocking. The backs of two of them were bloody and bruised, and the back of one of them was still bleeding. There is no explanation." Israel's daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, quoted Judge Michal Agmon as saying yesterday.

Moreover, she reprimanded the police for not investigating the incident and for not calling a doctor to examine the stricken boy.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation army claims it is investigating the killing of a Palestinian municipal worker in Nablus.

Israeli soldiers Saturday shot and killed a Palestinian municipal worker driving to tend to the electricity system at Nablus fire station, even after he showed his papers.

Palestinian witnesses said 53-year-old Ahmad Al-Karimi, the father of seven, was shot as he sat in his city-owned truck Saturday, after obeying an order from an Israeli armored vehicle to pull over.

The Israeli occupation army merely expressed regret for what it labeled 'an incident' and claimed it was due to the "enormous pressure the soldiers are facing".

Many similar 'incidents' have occurred since September 2000, yet non have been pursued or investigated by the Israeli authorities as they have claimed they would.

"This just goes to show how insufferable our situation is- even those supposedly permitted to be out and about are at risk," Nablus Mayor Ghassan Shak'aa told Reuters.

US Pilot Tells Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister to Get Off Plane

BERLIN (IRNA): A pilot for a Delta Airlines sister company refused Friday to fly Israeli deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchior from Cincinnati to Toronto, citing him as a security risk, the online site of the Spiegel magazine said here Monday.

The Israeli embassy in Washington had contacted the US State Department over the affair, according to Melchior.

This is the third time an Israeli official was ordered to get off the plane because of a pilot's security considerations, the report said.

The others were Alon Pinkas, the Israeli consul general in New York, and a bodyguard of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

Sunday August 11, 2002

Palestinian Officials Continue Washington Talks

WASHINGTON: Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak Al-Yahya met with CIA Director George Tenet IN Washington to discuss a US plan to reshape Palestinian security forces.

The officials met at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, outside Washington for about an hour to discuss a US plan for training and rebuilding the Palestinian security infrastructure, sources said.

The CIA declined to comment and Palestinian sources were not available to give details about yesterday’s scheduled meeting.

A source close to the Palestinian delegation, speaking earlier in the week, said it was unclear what role, if any, the CIA would play in any future restructuring of a security infrastructure Palestinians say has been wrecked by Israel.

Among the reforms suggested are proposals to merge different branches of the security services run by President Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority to make them more accountable and able to rein in 'hard-liners'.

Arafat said Friday that the United States, Egypt and Jordan would guide reforms to his security services, his first public acceptance of foreign involvement in the process.

Last month US Secretary of States Colin Powell and the White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice discussed the US plan for the Palestinian security forces with two senior aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Washington wants to convince Israel that the plan could protect Israelis from attack by Palestinians. The idea is that Israelis would then withdraw from the seven Palestinian cities they reoccupied in June.
 

Peace Keeping Forces in Palestine Advocated By Rome

VATICAN CITY: Pope John Paul on Sunday called for peace in the Middle East, and dispatching international peacekeeping forces to the occupied Palestinian territories.

"I ask the international community to commit itself with greater determination to be present on the ground, offering mediation to create the conditions for a fruitful dialogue between the parties that would accelerate peace," he said in his speech at Castel Gandolfo.

The Palestine Authority (PA) has asked the United Nations to send international observers to the region.

"Now again, I make an appeal to the Israeli and Palestine politicians responsible to recover the path of fair negotiations," the Pope said.

"When will one learn that co-existence between the Israeli and Palestinian people cannot result from arms. Neither attacks, nor the walls of separation, nor retaliation, will lead to a just solution to the conflict," he said in an address to pilgrims at his summer residence near Rome.

The pope also appealed to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to return to the path of "loyal negotiation" to end fighting that has cost the lives of more than 2,400 people, most of them Palestinians.

Saturday August 10, 2002

Israel to Pressure Belgium Over Proposed Laws

TEL AVIV: Israeli sources indicated Friday that it will put pressure on the Belgian government not to move ahead with two proposed laws that could make it possible for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to stand war crimes’ trial in Belgium.

Israeli had summoned the Belgian ambassador to Tel Aviv to express concern over two proposed Belgian laws.

The trial controversy began when a case was filed against Ariel Sharon for his responsibility in the massacres carried out against Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 1982, under what is referred to as the "genocide law", which grants Belgian courts "universal jurisdiction" over war crimes committed anywhere in the world.

But in June, a Belgian appeals court dismissed the case against Sharon because under the existing law, prosecution is only possible when suspects are on Belgian soil.

One of the proposed laws would allow trying war criminals in absentia, Israeli officials said Tuesday, adding that if passed, the law could possibly reopen the case against Sharon.

The second proposed law would grant Belgian courts jurisdiction over cases that cannot be brought before the International Criminal Court because they were committed before its formation in July 01,2002, Israeli officials said.

Palestinian Officials Continue Washington Talks

WASHINGTON: Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razzak Al-Yahya met with CIA Director George Tenet IN Washington to discuss a US plan to reshape Palestinian security forces.

The officials met at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, outside Washington for about an hour to discuss a US plan for training and rebuilding the Palestinian security infrastructure, sources said.

The CIA declined to comment and Palestinian sources were not available to give details about yesterday’s scheduled meeting.

A source close to the Palestinian delegation, speaking earlier in the week, said it was unclear what role, if any, the CIA would play in any future restructuring of a security infrastructure Palestinians say has been wrecked by Israel.

Among the reforms suggested are proposals to merge different branches of the security services run by President Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority to make them more accountable and able to rein in 'hard-liners'.

Arafat said Friday that the United States, Egypt and Jordan would guide reforms to his security services, his first public acceptance of foreign involvement in the process.

Last month US Secretary of States Colin Powell and the White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice discussed the US plan for the Palestinian security forces with two senior aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Washington wants to convince Israel that the plan could protect Israelis from attack by Palestinians. The idea is that Israelis would then withdraw from the seven Palestinian cities they reoccupied in June.

Six Palestinians Killed- Khan Yunis Shelled, Children Wounded

NABLUS/GAZA: Nablus municipality worker Ahmad Qreni, 54, was driving through the town's center when a tank opened fire on his vehicle. He was hit in the head by bullets, dying shortly afterwards at the town's hospital, medical and security sources said.

Meanwhile, a teenager injured two days ago following clashes with the Israeli army, and a 23-year-old wounded during an Israeli incursion into Beit Lahia the same day, died on Saturday morning in Gaza City.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli tanks shelled houses in the southern town of Khan Yunis early Saturday, injuring eight Palestinians, including four children, medical sources said.

In the northern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian was also shot dead by Israeli troops Saturday.

The Israeli army said the man was carrying grenades which exploded when they shot him, while Palestinian witnesses said he was burying a bomb in the border area.

A curfew was reimposed on Bethlehem after a group of some 500 supporters of the Arab-Jewish Tayush peace organization were prevented to enter the southern West Bank city.

Soldiers also gunned down a Palestinian ‘infiltrator’ trying to slip into Israel from the Gaza Strip Saturday morning, while four other people died of wounds from the Israeli violence of previous weeks.

The Israeli army also confirmed that it killed another Palestinian driver in Nablus for driving a "suspicious-looking lorry" and had refused to stop when asked.

"IDF forces called to the driver to stop ... The soldiers then opened fire and as a result the lorry driver was killed," the source said.

The Israeli army is currently “checking” the report.

The Israeli army often shoots at Palestinians for ‘violating’ the military curfew. Palestinians however are forced to risk their lives to obtain food and water as Israeli curfews in the West Bank have extended for weeks.

Friday August 9, 2002

Humanitarian Envoy to The Occupied Territories Appointed

RAMALLAH (PMC): United Nations Secretary-General has appointed a special envoy responsible for evaluating the humani