JULY 2001

Tuesday July 31, 2001

Main Headlin

At 1:50 pm today an Israeli combat helicopter fired three missiles at the Islamic Studies Center run by Jamal Mansour. The Center is situated in a five-storey residential building on Al Sika Road in Nablus. The missiles were apparently fired in an attempt to assassinate Hamas leaders.

The attack caused the deaths of the following Hamas leaders and journalists present in the office for a press conference at the time:

• 41-year old Jamal Mansour from Balata refugee camp
• 42-year-old Jamal Al Damoni
• 28-year-old Omar Mansour
• 32-year-old Faheem Dawabsha from Doma near Nablus
• 26-year-old journalist Mohammad Al Bishawi from Balat (who works for Al Najah Press Office)
• 25-year-old Al Quds photographer Othman Katnani from Askar refugee camp,

Also killed in the attack were two young brothers;

• 8-year-old Ashraf and
• 10-year-old Bilal Abdul Munaim

from Jdaida village near Jenin, who were visiting Nablus with their mother and happened to be passing the building that was shelled at the time of the attack.

Seven other people were wounded; three of whom are in serious condition.

This crime is part of Israel’s escalating assassination policy, which is condemned throughout the world as a grave violation of international laws and conventions. However, international and Arab condemnation seems insufficient to stop Ariel Sharon’s government and army from carrying out state-sponsored assassinations of Palestinians. Israel used a variety of measures for these assassinations to date, including US-manufactured aircrafts, tanks, explosives planted in vehicles and telephone booths, ambushes and snipers.

The number of victims of Israel’s extra-judicial executions has risen to 47 including bystanders. This official Israeli government policy is a grave violation of the 1949 IVth Geneva Convention and its additional Protocols, and as such is considered a war crime.

Sunday July 29, 2001

Main Headlin

Large numbers of Israeli soldiers, police and 'border guards' broke into the Holy Sanctuary in the heart of Jerusalem. The first incursion was at 11:30 am, when Israeli troops attacked Palestinian worshippers and demonstrators with metal bullets, teargas and batons, injuring 20 people.

At 2.45 pm, large numbers of the same forces attacked the areas surrounding Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, firing metal bullets and teargas at unarmed worshippers, including elderly people and children, as well as attacking them with batons and beating them severely and injuring 40 more people.

Wednesday July 25, 2001

Main Headlin

Israeli forces today assassinated 38-year-old Salah Druza from Nablus by firing missiles down on his car from a helicopter gunship.

Monday July 23, 2001

Main Headlin

26-year-old Mustafa Yaseen from Aneen in the district of Jenin was assassinated in front of his wife and child.

Sunday July 22, 2001

Main Headlin

• President Arafat confirms the Israeli military escalation against the Palestinians threatens the entire region.
• President Arafat confers with the Jordanian monarch in Amman today over holding an urgent Arab summit.
• The Psalestinian leadership welcomes the decision of the G-8 summit in Geneva over sending international observers to the Middle East.
• Egyptian diplomatic sources divulge the Bush administration agrees on sending American observers to monitor the escalating violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
• Israeli security and army forces were put on alert in anticipation of retaliatory attacks by Palestinian militiamen.
• Palestinian gunmen exchange fire with Israeli occupation soldiers in Shweika village north of Tulkarm city.
• Israel reveals new arrangements to summon its reserve soldiers from leaves abroad.
• Israeli occupation soldiers wound four Palestinian children near Qalandia checkpoint and bombard residential quarters in Rafeh.
• Israel sends heavy artillery units and tanks near the contact points with the Palestinians.
• Israeli soldiers kill a Palestinian near Nitsarim settlement in the Gaza Strip.
• A Christian patriarch confirms peace without returing east Jerusalem to the Palestinians remains fragile.
• Col. Rajoub calls for arresting erxtremist Jewish settlers with blood on their hands.
• Maj. Gen. Lehneidi declares:" we've an emergency plan to challenge an entry by Israeli occupation soldiers to the PNA controlled areas ".

Saturday July 21, 2001

Main Headlin

• President Arafat heads a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Gaza today.
• Israeli tanks and artillery units bombard Beit Jala town near Bethlehem.
• Israeli occupation forces kill a Fateh activist and wound ten civilians in a rocket attack in Hebron.
• Israeli security men kidnap an activist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) south of el Bireh city.
• President Arafat flies for Amman tomorrow for talks with the Jordanian monarch.
• Abed Rabbo: The observers are not an alternative to the international peace-keeping force.
• Israel accepts American observers only and Powel links sending them to a mutual approval from the Palestinian and Israeli parties.
• Solana condemns the assassination of three Palestinians including an infant in a heinous attack perpetrated by Jewish settlers near Edna village.
• Extremist settlers call for the assassination of Arafat.
• Jewish settlers continue their harassment against Palestinians in Lemghaeyer village north-east of Ramallah and in Salfit.
• France condemn the Edna attack describing it " barbaric".
• A Gallop Poll reveals the majority of the Israelis support continued contacts with President Arafat and oppose the idea of a military attack against the Palestinian National Authority.
• Belgium resists international pressure to stop the trial of Sharon as a criminal of war.
• Egyptian laborers donate USA$ 100,000 to the Palestinian intifada(uprising).
• A Qatari newspaper reports Sharon plans to transfer half a million Palestinian from the occupied territories to nearby Arab countries.

Thursday July 19, 2001

Main Headline

• President Arafat calls for an urgent Arab summit to challenge the Israeli military escalation .
• Israel dispatches new military reinforcement to the West Bank ahead of entering PNA controlled areas.
• Sharon government confirms the enforcement of an assassination campaign against Palestinian activists.
• The Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee Abu Mazen discloses war plans prepared by Sharon to strike against the Palestinian Authority.
• Abdulrahman: Israel heading towards war and we will not be alone in the battle.
• Israeli religious leaders press on Sharon to allow them enter the courtyard of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
• President Mubarak sees no hope for a peaceful settlement in the Middle East with Sharon who only understands the language of war.
• The Israeli government confirms recruiting a military assassination squad in the West Bank.
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair informs visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Peres the new military reinforcements will further inflame tension.
• European Foreign Ministers meeting in Rome express deep concern over the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East.
• Israeli occupation forces bombard residential areas in Hebron and Beit Jala inflicting scores of casualties among Palestinians.
• The Arab Follow-up Committee recommends sending international observers to the occupied territories.
• The Israeli government dispatches hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles in several Palestinian areas.
• Presidential Secretary Tayeb Abdulraheem says:" Israel is not favoring reconciliation and defusing tension"
• Cabinet Secretary Abdulrahman declares: " The Israeli military reinforcement will bring the area to a new war".

Tuesday July 17, 2001

Main Headline

• Israel bombs the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarm as the Israeli army attempted invading these cities.
• Upon his return from Egypt, President Arafat: The meeting with Peres can only be evaluated by considering the outcome on the ground.
• A Palestinian suicide bomber carries out a suicide attack in which he was killed along with two Israelis, the PNA condemned the attack.
• Two Palestinian killed by a bomb in Jerusalem.
• The EU calls for deploying international observers, and implementing the Mitchell recommendations.
• President Arafat: If Israel waged war against Syria, we can retaliate in such a way that strongly harm Israel.
• PNA spokesman condemns the suicide attack.
• Settlers carry on with their aggression against the Palestinian citizens in Hebron.
• 12th class "Tawjihi" results is to be declared tomorrow.
• Israeli and Palestinian lawyers join hands against Sharon war crimes in Sabra and Shatella massacres.
• Preventive Security Chief Jibrel Rajoub says attacks within Israel are not in the Palestinian interest.
• The French government supports deploying international observers in Palestine.
• The international red cross committee was turned down by Israel that refused to allow Palestinians to visit their relatives in the Israeli prisons.

Monday July 16, 2001

Main Headline

• President Arafat calls for stopping the Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people, and to implement Mitchell's recommendations.
• A high level Saudi Envoy is behind the positive changes on the American's position towards the Palestinians.
• Jewish Settlers' publications call for carrying out armed operations against the Palestinians.
• The letter that has been transmitted to President Arafat by Omri Sharon included assurances that Israel is not planning to end the Palestinian Authority.
• Mahmod Hamdan, Islamic Jihad Cadre was kidnapped by Israeli secret units in Bethlehem
• Jewish settlers burnt 12 Palestinian Houses in Hebron.
• Dangerous Israeli escalation against all Palestinian territories.
• Israeli settlers burnt 1000 dunums of agricultural land that belongs to Kafr Al-Deek town.
• A continuous Israeli bombardment against Hebron and Ramallah.
• Presidents Arafat and Mubrak meet separately with Israeli Foreign Minister Shemon Peres.

Sunday July 15, 2001

Main Headlines

• Jewish settlers and Israeli occupation forces wound nine Palestinians including four children in yesterday's clashes.
• President Arafat meets President Mubarak of Egypt in Cairo today.
• US Secretary of State Collin Powel criticizes the Israeli violence against Palestinians saying " Don't expect people to close eyes on the ongoing Israeli demolition of houses and settlement policy".
• Intensified Arab contacts underway to explore the possibility of holding an urgent Arab summit over the Palestinian intifada.
• President Arafat confers with the Prime Minister of Rumania on Tuesday.
• International Amnesty condemns the assassination policy exercised by Israel against Palestinian activists.
• Cairo witnesses large scale diplomatic contacts to avoid a regional war in the Middle East.
• Egyptian presidential adviser Osama Baz reiterates: " Syria will not be alone in case of coming under an Israeli military attack".
• Jewish settlers seriously wound a Palestinian child in Hebron.
• The permanent observer of the Palestinian mission urges the UN Security Council to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinians

Saturday July 7, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israel's occupation forces bombard Gaza, Rafeh, and Bethlehem cities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank inflicting 25 casulaties among Palestinian civilians including two children admitted to hospital in serious condition.
• The Joint Palestinian-Israeli security meeting held in Tel Aviv with US paprticipation yesterday fails to reduce tension in the area.
• Massive popular demonstrations were launched throughout the Palestinian territories yesterday to condemn the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.
• Arafat's aide Nabil Abu Rudineh described the current status quo in the occupied territories " very dangerous" and accused the Israeli government with reneging its committments toward all signed agreements with the PNA.
• President Yasser Arafat received a telephone call from US Secretary of State Collin Powel yesterday over the escalation witnessed in the Middle East and the Israeli policy of assassination perpetrated against Palestinian activists.
• Israeli tanks shelled Palestinian residential areas near Mintar crossing point east of Gaza city . In a separate incident a big Israeli military force stormed into Silwad town, north-east of Ramallah city at midnight last night and fired live ammunition and tear gas bombs during this barbaric attack.
• UN Secretary General Koffi Anan urged Israel to stop its current policy of assassination against Palestinian activits. Meanwhile Israeli press reports said the Bush administration decided to reduce its involvement in the Middle East peace process. According to the Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv the American decision was reached following the failure of the last visit made by US Secretary of State Collin Powel to the region.
• A new poll published by the Gallop research center showed 51% of the Israelis favor the evacuation of some Jewish settlements in the occupied territories while 44% see these settlements affect the security of Israel.
• The US government renwed its committment toward the Mitchel Report and denies press reports that its peace efforts have reached a deadlock.
• The Israeli government led by PM Sharon is escalating a press campaign against President Arafat. A secret documnet prepared by the Israeli Security System locally known "Shabak" and published by the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv dubbed Arafat a serious threat to the security of Israel and called for his assassination.

Wednesday July 4, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israel's occupation forces bombard Rafah and the town of Sielt Al Dhar in the northern West Bank with tank fire, destroy fertile land in Yatta in the southern West Bank and order Palestinians near Susia/ Yatta to evacuate their homes and the area in less than two hours.
• The Israeli occupation forces and Jewish settlers launch a destruction war on Palestinian properties in Jenin, Hebron and Tulkarm.
  Israeli occupation forces arrest and imprison hundreds of Palestinians and place them in prisons without trail. Palestinian women prisoners in Israeli jails are on hunger strike. The Israeli prison's authorities treat Palestinian prisoners in most barbaric ways, including torture and humiliation, sleep deprivation, physical and psychological torture.
  Organizations concerned with human rights in Palestine accuse Israel of turning prisons into graves for Palestinian freedom fighters.
• A Jewish settler opened his machine gun on a herd of sheep belonging to Palestinian shepherds east of Jerusalem. Israeli occupation authorities 'accused' the herd of trespassing although the land were the sheep were grazing is a Palestinian land confiscated by the Israeli occupation and stolen by Jewish settlers!!
• The Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Sharon met twice in less than 24 hours and took dangerous decisions that would threaten the shaky cease-fire further. The Israeli cabinet decided to continue its assassination campaign against Palestinians effectively violating the Tenet plan and the US sponsored cease-fire. Nine Palestinians were murdered and assassinated over the last 72 hours, including two women who died while waiting on Israeli checkpoints placed on Palestinian roads in the West Bank. Five men were assassinated three by missiles fired from Israeli helicopter gunships and two by Israeli tank fire. A taxi driver was shot and killed by Jewish settlers, and a boy died of his wounds in Gaza.
• Members of Sharon's cabinet and spokesmen for Sharon in addition to right wing Israeli journalists incite against President Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority.
• Shimon Peres threatens resignation if Sharon's government continue with its de legitimization of President Arafat.
• Minister of information and Culture Yasser Abd Rabbo says: To Sharon, quiet means assassinating five Palestinian young men daily.
• Washington reiterates its objection to Israel's assassination policies. Israel commits the crime of extra judicial executions against Palestinian youngsters. William Burns, the American Middle East envoy visits the United Arab Emirates. Sheik Zayed Bin Sultan, UAE's head of state called on the US to play a balanced unbiased role in the Middle East peace process. Sheik Zayed condemned Israel's continuing aggression and occupation of Palestinian land and accused the US of not doing enough to deter Israel from continuing its aggression.
• Yossi Sarid, leader of the opposition in Israel calls for placing international monitoring and observation force to oversee the cease-fire and prevent it from collapse. Sarid wants an American and EU force to be placed in the occupied Palestinian territories, and warned of an imminent explosion in the Middle East if no international mediation does not come in very soon.
• PLC head Ahmad Qurai said: Sharon does not want cooling the situation down and will not abandon his plans for the Palestinian people.

Tuesday July 3, 2001

Main Headlines

• President Arafat met UN Terje Larson in Gaza yesterday. The President described the assassination of 3 Palestinian men the day before yesterday as an ugly crime committed by Israel and called for the UN and the world community to dispatch international forces to monitor the cease-fire and to protect the Palestinian civilian population. Terje Larson on his part said, the cease-fire appears not to be holding. Larsen affirmed the need to implement the Mitchell Committee report in all its aspects, political, economic and security aspects for the cease-fire to hold. Larsen added that there is a need to reassess the problematic cease-fire as it stands now and the need to introduce economic and political under pinning in order to give the cease-fire an opportunity to be sustained.
• A Palestinian taxi driver was shot dead by Jewish settlers near Nablus yesterday. Two Palestinian women died at Israeli check points in the occupied Palestinian territories. A woman from Qalqilya and another from Nabi Saleh village north west of Ramallah.
  Sharon promises Jewish settlers to stay forever on the Palestinian land. Land is being confiscated and prepared for building more Jewish settlements around Arab east Jerusalem.
• Sharon said that he is lately thinking of launching a comprehensive attack on the Palestinian people and Palestinian National Authority.
• Fearing being charged with more crimes against humanity, Sharon apparently changed his mind and is ruling out the use of tanks and airplanes to attack Palestinian civilian and other targets. He is ordering his occupation troops to conduct guerilla warfare against the Palestinian people.
• If one remembers, when Sharon came to power back in February, he and his cronies in the Israeli government said that their intentions is not to have the Palestinian public suffer and he attempted to separate between the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian general public. Apparently Sharon has failed in this concept of separation and came to the conclusion that the Palestinian general public and the PNA are one, hence the starvation and closure war Sharon is waging against the Palestinian people. The genocide Sharon's government is committing against the Palestinian people is taking place in different forms: the killing of Palestinians by missiles fired by helicopter gunships, by Jewish settlers and occupation army troops firing heavy machine guns and tank shells indiscriminately at Palestinian residential areas, by killing Palestinian children and by causing death to Palestinians by preventing ambulances from reaching hospitals, in addition to a war of Starvation is being launched quietly by Sharon on an enduring Palestinian public.
• Israeli reports speak of Syria testing medium range missiles capable of carrying unconventional warheads.
• A member of the Israeli government, a fascist named Rahbaam Zeevy describes the Palestinian people as lice and a cancer. This mockery of an individual an immigrant into our land of Palestine, before, called for the transfer of the Palestinian people from their homeland. His infested brain came about with this description apparently to relieve the feelings of frustrations and displeasure because of the increasing attachment of the Palestinian people with to their land. After all, Palestine land speaks Arabic, and its salt taste Arab. What is more, Zeevy and people like him know this very well.
• Washington, Paris and the EU condemned the Israeli raids and assassination of Palestinians by Israel.
• Sharon's government prevents Yossi Beillin from coming to Ramallah.
• The Israeli Prime Minister will visit Paris and Berlin this Thursday and will skip Denmark.
• President Arafat visited Egypt yesterday and met with both President Mubarak and Crown prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Monday July 2, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israel assassinated three more Palestinian men yesterday. Israel used Apache helicopter gunships and fired several missiles at the vehicle carrying the three men. Two other Palestinian men and a young boy were also murdered by Israeli occupation early yesterday. Israel murdered a total of five young men and a young boy yesterday, another black day in Palestinian history caused by the unrelenting killing machine of war criminal Sharon and his fascist government. In the meantime, Sharon addressed Jewish settlers in occupied Palestinian land near Hebron calling his settlers heroes and saying that he played a major part in bringing settlers into the Palestinian territories. Sharon assured settlers that they are on Palestinian occupied land to stay. All the while, Sharon is demanding from the Palestinian people under occupation and from president Arafat complete quiet, and not one single sign of resistance to the Israeli occupation or to Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Sharon's tanks last night bombed Kabatyah, Zababdeh, Sielet Dhaher and Biet Rima villages in the northern West Bank. Jewish settlers burned hundreds of Dunums of fertile land near Ramin.
• Israel has strenuously opposed any foreign monitoring, after years of being hounded in international organizations, and Washington has usually supported that position. Earlier this year, the United States vetoed a Palestinian resolution calling on the United Nations to send an international monitoring force to Israel. The Mitchell report, however, does speak approvingly of deploying international monitors, akin to a multinational team that monitors friction points in Hebron. Mr. Arafat, has often called for foreign monitors. He did so again today at a press conference with Secretary Powell in Ramallah, where he called for an international observer committee composed of monitors from the United States, Europe and the United Nations.
  One must ask himself/ herself WHY does Israel oppose any monitoring? Only one obvious answer emerges, they do not want any interference while they continue their atrocities.
• Palestinian women prisoners in Israeli jails go on hunger strike. 10 Palestinian women prisoners including a 13 year old girl Sana'a Amre in Hadarim prison/ Ramla, have been badly beaten, and tortured by Israeli prison wardens.
• The death of a Palestinian woman on Rafah crossing point sheds light on the fate of thousands of Palestinians stranded at this crossing point for days.
• The Israeli atrocities practiced against the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories are so many engulfing the whole Palestinian population covering all sectors of Palestinian life. The extent and length of atrocities is making it very difficult for people to complain, rendering the suffering of people so normal that people have no option but to endure. Israel's defense minister Ben Eliezer threat to make Palestinian life hell is not just a threat, the Israeli government made hell a reality in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The Israeli occupation army and police use armed helicopters to search for Palestinian workers on their way to earn their living. Nets are thrown on workers from helicopters in order to catch them, the same way fish are caught in the sea.
• Israel attacks a Syrian radar position in Lebanon. Israel's defense minister issues another warning to Syria. Israel accuses Syria of assisting Hizbullah, and hence wants to punish Syria for Hizbullah attempts to liberate Lebanese territories in Sheb'a farms from the Israeli occupation.
• Israel is said to be worried that an order for the arrest of Sharon for war crimes charges might be forthcoming.
• President Arafat visits Egypt today and will meet President Husnie Mubarak and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia separately today.

Sunday July 1, 2001

Main Headlines

• Addressing the Socialists International Conference held in Lisbon, President Arafat said: Israel put impossible conditions in order to perpetuate violence. President Arafat added, peace will not be achieved in the Middle East without the establishment of the independent Palestinian state.
• Washington supplies Israel with airplanes capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
• Brussels Public Prosecutor's Office ruled that a complaint against the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon accusing him of crimes against humanity is admissible. The Belgian paper Le Soir said that a magistrate will launch an investigation into the events that lead to the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps massacre back in 1982.
• A 64-year-old Palestinian woman who just finished medical treatment in Cairo/ Egypt died yesterday after being stopped by Israeli soldiers and prevented from going back home to Rafah. Thousands of Palestinians get stranded for days on end in the blazing heat in the Sinai desert waiting for the Israeli occupation soldiers manning the crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza strip to let Palestinian travelers through.
• A 5 year old boy was shot and seriously wounded when Israeli occupation soldiers fired at a group of people waiting at Al-Mintar crossing point between Gaza and Israel. The Israeli siege is very tight, and the water is very scarce, people have no work and food is running short. Without the assistance provided by UN relief agencies and charitable organizations, people would have starved in Gaza and in the West Bank.
• Israeli occupation soldiers assaulted three Palestinian journalists while on duty covering the hardships sustained by the Palestinian civilian population on Israeli checkpoints. At Ain Arik checkpoint, Israeli soldiers attacked the journalists violently, and prevented them from taking pictures or sending reports. The occupation soldiers announced the area a close military zone.
• The archbishop of the Anglican church in Nazareth was subjected to harassment and threats while travelling to Jenin. Israeli soldiers on a checkpoint on the gates of Jenin said that they would have fired on him and killed him if he did not stop. The archbishop was travelling in a diplomatic car at the time.
• The Israeli defense minister Ben-Eliezer threatens the Palestinian people with living hell if the confrontations continue.
• An Egyptian soldier was shot and killed by Israeli occupation soldiers near Rafah yesterday.
• Political commentators are not impressed with the American policies in the Middle East, it is accused of lack of coherency and loss of credibility.
• Palestinian National and Islamic forces condemn America's pro Israeli policies in the region.
• Syria and Lebanon issue a joint communiqué warning Israel not to launch any attack on either Syria or Lebanon.