JUNE 2001

Thursday June 28, 2001

Main Headlines

• Using the terms 'violence' to describe Palestinian men women and chidden trying to break the Israeli occupation soldiers blockades on Palestinian cities, towns and villages is a gross injustice, not just to the Palestinian cause, but to humanity, freedom, dignity and other values humanity should cherish. ' Palestinian violence ' terms are repeatedly heard on news reports by BBC and CNN reporters. It would be more appropriate and more useful if the BBC and CNN reporters remove themselves from the comfort of reporting from West Jerusalem studios and actually go and visit Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps under siege and closures in the West bank and Gaza, now for many many months. I recommend that they visit Dir Ballout, Sawyeh village, Burqa, Salem, Biet Furick, Nabi Saleh, Balata refugee camp, Rafah, khan Younis, Shajaeyya, Shatti refugee camp..tec. This morning, a BBC reporter spoke of Palestinian violence, and the need for President Arafat to stop it. The T. V. Footage shown while the reporter was speaking showed Palestinian young men throwing stones from behind a trench and a barrier carved out from a Palestinian road by Israeli bulldozers in order to block the road before Palestinian traffic and people. The footage showed Israeli soldiers armed to the teeth charging and firing against a handful of Palestinians who earlier attempted to cross the road on their way to work, to universities, to hospitals etc and were prevented from doing that by the Sharon's Nazi occupation army.
• Israeli tanks are spread on the entrances of Bani Zied villages north west of Ramallah, and Jewish settlers escalate their attacks against the Palestinian people and property. Israeli heavy machine guns mounted on Israeli tanks open fire on Palestinian homes in Rafah. A Jewish settler opened fire on a Palestinian vehicle in the Nablus area injuring four. 8 other Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire in Hebron, Rafah and Sebastiah.
• A Palestinian man was nearly lynched by a Jewish mob in Jerusalem last night. Khaldoun Rebhi Al- Hussienie from Ras Al amod neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem was rescued from the mob and transferred to hospital. He sustained moderate injuries.
• A Palestinian official source says: Sharon's plan for a 'settlement' is effectively a call to continue the Israeli aggression. A Palestinian Israeli Security meeting was held in Tel Aviv last night.
• UN spokesmen and officials in the occupied Palestinian territories say: Israel impedes UN humanitarian works in the occupied Palestinian territories and warn that further delays in receiving financial assistance threatens a dangerous deterioration in the area.
• A Palestinian welcome to President Bush's stand in his talks with Sharon. Palestinian cabinet secretary says: the American administration realized the dangers inherited in Sharon's tactics. Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat calls on US Secretary of state Powell to put in place a time line for the implementation of the Mitchell report recommendations.
• Koffi Annan's term as UN Secretary General has been renewed. Annan will serve in his current post for five years more. ' Congratulation'.

Wednesday June 27, 2001

Main Headlines

• Addressing a 'friends of Israel' gathering in New York, Israel's prime minister Sharon called on world countries not to receive President Arafat as a head of state, but as head of ' a terrorist gang.' A life long terrorist, a butcher and a war criminal as shown on TV through out the world recently in the BBC PANORAMA documentary film - in short Sharon- is labeling President Arafat, a life long freedom fighter recognized by the whole world as such as a 'terrorist gang leader.' Ever since he took office in February, Sharon and his Israeli/Jewish propaganda machine has been trying to de-legitimize President Arafat and the Palestinian National authority. Few weeks ago, Sharon was about to succeed, particularly as he tried with some success to dupe the world, particularly the novice American administration in order to get the green line to destroy the PNA and the Palestinian people. Obviously, the world was not deceived by Sharon and his attempts were finally dashed when President Bush contrary to Sharon's wishes publicly announced yesterday that progress was made in the Middle East recently, some thing that requires tangible moves from Israel with regard to implementing the Mitchell report recommendations as a package within a recognized time line in order for the cease-fire to be strengthened, Jewish settlements are frozen and peace negotiations resumed.
• Senior advisor to President Arafat Nabil abu Rdianeh said yesterday: US Secretary of State's visit to the region today is a cross road that will determine the way towards peace or the other way. Abu Rdianah also said the establishment of a Palestinian state with Arab Jerusalem, as its capital is one crucial condition to realize peace.
• A senior Palestinian official yesterday warned that if political discussions do not accompany security talks, the situation might deteriorate very quickly.
• A Palestinian document will be handed to US Secretary of State Colin Powoll calling on the Bush administration to pressure Israel to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• President Mubarak of Egypt warned yesterday that violence in the Middle East might turn into terrorism that will affect all of us. President Mubarak said that we talked a lot to the American administration, and there must be a move from their side because the United State is the only superpower and it has so much interests in our region.
• A Palestinian young man from Qalandia north of Jerusalem died of wounds he sustained five months ago. Mahmoud Mtair 17 years young was shot by Israeli soldiers on the main Jerusalem Ramallah high road. In Hebron, the Israeli occupation troops clamped a curfew on more than thirty thousand Palestinians in area H2 of the Palestinian city of Hebron. In Khan Younis, Israeli tanks shelled Palestinian residential areas in Al- Amal and the Austrain neighborhoods in the city.
• Palestinian medical sources accuses the Israeli occupation authorities of abusing the body of Hasan Abu Shereh accused of killing an Israeli intelligence army officer 12 days ago, the body of Abu Shereh was returned and handed to the Palestinian side yesterday. His intestines were removed, one of his eyes pocked, many of his fingers cut and removed and traces of burns all over his dead body. All are signs of torture and abuse the Israeli authorities inflicted on Hasan abu Shereh.
• President Bashar Al- Assad said yesterday that Syria is ready for peace if and when Israel withdraws from all occupied Arab territories occupied by Israel in the war of June 1967. President Assad however added that the situation as it is now under the leadership of Sharon is going in the direction of war and not peace.
• Sharon's government orders building more Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Israel announced plans yesterday for more houses in the occupied West Bank, in defiance of the Mitchell report's call for a total building freeze.
• The proposals were issued as Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, was preparing to meet President George Bush in Washingtonto drive home his view that Yasser Arafat is the villain of the conflict and to urge America to pressure the Palestinian leader to do more to end the violence.
• Israel's Lands Authority published tenders for 38 plots in Maaleh Adumim, by far the largest settlement in the West Bank, where Israel continues to build in defiance of international law.
• The announcement undercut an order, made public yesterday, to evacuate 15 new settler "outposts" that have cropped up on the West Bank since the premier's election.

Monday June 25, 2001

Main Headlines

• Two Palestinian children were seriously injured when an Israeli remotely controlled explosion destroyed a telephone booth in Nablus killing one Palestinian man.
• Warning of Sharon's hostile intentions, the Palestinian Legislative Council reiterates: The declared cease-fire does not negate the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation.
• A Palestinian document detailing the Palestinian position to implement the Mitchell report recommendations was handed to US envoy W. Burns last Saturday.
• The Palestinian side wants to go back to the peace negotiation table within six weeks from June 13 when a cooling off period began.
• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat calls on Washington to accelerate putting in place the time line required for the implementation of the Mitchell report recommendations.
• US envoy Burns said to have asked for stronger security measures before implementing the Mitchell report recommendations.
• Israel assassinated a Palestinian man in Nablus yesterday. Usama Jawabreh, a Fatah member was assassinated when an explosion hit the telephone booth he was using. Palestinian sources said a bomb detonated by remote control caused the explosion.
• Jewish settlers radio stations broadcast direct calls to Jewish settlers to go out and destroy Palestinian property, burn fields, burn crops and olive trees and close the roads to Palestinian traffic and pedestrians. The Radio stations are operating illegally in the occupied Palestinian territories under the eyes, ears and consent of the Sharon current government. As a result of this officially sanctioned incitement, thousands of olive trees and thousands of tons of wheat crops are being destroyed, people are injured and property destroyed. Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are given the green light from Sharon to wreak havoc in the Palestinian areas.
• 400 Jewish settlers' families left the occupied Palestinian territories over the last few months. Very many others are in the process of leaving or are planning to leave, as they can no longer coexist with the current hostile situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Senior Palestinian officials say, Sharon's policies of assassinations will not end the Intifada. Only political negotiations and resuming peace talks on the road to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land will do that.
• Israel arrested one of its informers as the one who drove the suicide member to Tel Aviv and enabled him to carryout his suicide mission.

Sunday June 24, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israel destroys 20 Palestinian homes in Rafah and Megrakah in the Gaza strip. A Palestinian young man was killed by Israeli occupation troops and two others were wounded. In Aboud village, Israeli occupation bulldozers are busy uprooting olive trees and ripping Palestinian land apart. All this is happening while Sharon shedding tears about his policy of restraint and so called cease-fire.
• Leading US based human rights group yesterday called for a criminal investigation of Sharon's role in the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps' massacres. Hanny Meglly, executive director of Human's Rights Watch's Middle east and North Africa division said: " There is abundant evidence that war crimes against humanity were committed on a wide scale in the Sabra and Shatilla massacre, but to date, not a single individual has been brought to justice." In its statement, Human Rights Watch urged President George W. Bush to discuss the matter with Sharon during their scheduled meeting at the White House on Tuesday and to urge him to cooperate with the investigation. The group said the United States has a substantial interest in the case because the Israeli occupation of West Beirut followed written US assurances that Palestinians remaining there would be safe, as part of an agreement regarding the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization forces from Beirut.
• A leading Palestinian settlement expert warns that Israel is planning to build 2900 housing units in the Jewish settlement of 'Har Homa' Jabal Abu Ghniem.
• Peter Hansin head of UNRWA in the occupied Palestinian territories accuses the Israeli occupation army of destroying all aspects of life in the Palestinian territories. Hansin said that Israeli tanks, bulldozers and army are destroying, bombing, uprooting, and sieging the occupied Palestinian territories.
• President Arafat acquainted the American envoy W. Burns with the crimes committed by Jewish settlers against the Palestinian population. President Arafat said: it is time that a timetable is put in place for the implementation of the Mitchell report recommendations. The American envoy stresses the fact that there is no military solution for the current conflict and that the solution must be political through peace negotiations.
• Speaking to Israeli journalists, President Arafat urged Israel to cooperate in order to end the violence. Quoting a well known English proverb, President Arafat said " where ever there is a will, there is away. I.e., the Palestinian Israeli conflict can be solved amicably if Israel recognized Palestinian rights and implemented UN resolutions.

Saturday June 23, 2001

Main Headlines

• President Arafat received Javier Solana and Moratinos and assured them of the Palestinian commitment to implement understandings. President Arafat urged the EU to exert more efforts to stop the Israeli aggression. Nabil Shaath, informs US Secretary of State Powell that international observers are needed in order to ensure a continuous cease-fire. International observers are needed in order to monitor the situation on the grounds and to determine who violates the cease-fire and other understandings.
• Jewish settlers in the West Bank closed roads, damaged electricity supply cables, and burned thousands of Dunams of Palestinian agriculture land including thousands of olive trees. Jewish settlers attacked and damaged Palestinian fir engines and ambulances in the northern West Bank.
• Israeli occupation forces injured 40 Palestinian demonstrators yesterday 8 of whom are in serious conditions. Other Palestinians were injured by Israeli tanks that shelled residential areas in Beit Lahai in Gaza. In this Palestinian neighborhood a boy and his father were hit by bullets fired from a 500mm heavy machine guns. Both are in very serious conditions in hospital.
• Israeli sources expect large numbers of Jewish settlers to evacuate the West bank and Gaza. An increasing number of Jewish settlers are loosing confidence in Sharon and accuses him of not providing the required protection for them. Jewish settlers demonstrate in front of Sharon's office asking him to attack the Palestinian people and the PNA.
• Sharon appears to be shifting his position. In an interview with the Israeli television, Sharon said , there is no pure military solution to end the "violence" adding that there must be parallel political steps.
• Colin Powell will visit the region next week, over the last few days, President Bush said he felt there is some progress in the Middle east and that is why he is sending his Secretary of State to the region. Egypt's foreign minister Ahmad Maher visited Washington recently, also in Washington yesterday was Nabil Shaath -Palestinian minister of international cooperation.
• UNRWA needs US$ 77 million in urgent relief assistance.
• Since the start of the current cease fire, attacks of Jewish settlers against Palestinian civilians have mounted. Only yesterday, a youth in the town of Tulkarem was intentionally ran over by a settler motorist. Sabotage and arson of Palestinian orchards, glasshouses, factories, and even schools, such as in Nablus, occur on a daily basis. The Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom, reports that violence by Jewish settlers in the occupied territories is a widespread phenomenon that has cost the lives of 119 Palestinians since the first Intifada in 1987. The unsure situation in the territories and the lack of state subvention has caused some settlers to wish to move into more secure regions in Israel proper. According to a recent poll, of 54% of all settlers want to remain where there currently live.

Thursday June 21, 2001

Main Headlines

• President completed his visits to Spain and Egypt and returned home yesterday. In Ramallah, President Arafat answering the press said that Israel's claim to have stopped shooting is a lie. In Tel Aviv, Israeli senior officials say that any military attack on the Palestinian people and the PNA will be coordinated with the United States.
• President Bush speaks of progress and will send his Secretary of State to the region next week. Mr. Bush spoke to President Arafat yesterday reiterating his well known anti Palestinian position. Sharon will be flying to Washington next week and will meet President Bush and his close advisors. In his previous visit two weeks after he took office in Israel, Sharon on an invitation from Bush visited Washington and explained his point of view to the newly elected administration in Washington. Sharon advised the Bush administration not to invite President Arafat to Washington and asked the Bush administration to give Sharon 100 days to finish the job he promised the Israel electorate he will do. Obviously, Sharon has failed and will fail. Nevertheless the de-legitimization campaign orchestrated by the Sharon government assisted by the Bush administration and the Jewish lobby in Washington is still taking place. The Israeli left of center groups and few in the American administration in addition to the EU and the remaining world countries are firmly against the de-legitimization of the PNA and the Palestinian people. Sharon's war plans will not work and will not succeed. The Bush administration does not leave any opportunity to show its bad intentions against the Palestinian people, the people of Iraq, the Arab and Muslim nations. The day before yesterday, American and British war planes attacked northern Iraq killing 23 Iraqi young boys and seriously injuring 11 more. The Iraqi young boys were playing football. Iraqi TV showed the disfigured bodies of the Iraqi youngsters and the wounded.
• The Israeli President calls on leaders of the world to boycott President Arafat , a racist like Katsave , an immigrant from Iran is inciting the world against the leader of the Palestinian people. The invader and occupier incites against the victim and the indigenous.
• A Palestinian official source affirms the Palestinian commitment to cease-fire. Another Palestinian source said Israel is launching a wide-ranging campaign of arrests against the Palestinian people.
• A Palestinian worker was killed yesterday and three others were seriously injured when Israeli occupation forces on an Israeli checkpoint west of Ramallah opened fire on the laborers going to work. 7 Palestinians were injured 2 of them young children when Israeli tanks opened fire on residential areas in THE PALESTINIAN CITY OF Khan Younis in Gaza yesterday.
• Jewish settlers burned 200 dunums of olive tree groves in the northern West Bank.
• A bomb explosion occurred in Nablus yesterday injuring a Palestinian man. Sharon's government yesterday decided to resume its assassination policies against Palestinians. In a speech to Israelis yesterday, Sharon said, "Israel's liberation war of 948 did not end yet."
• Speaking from both side of his mouth, Sharon also spoke of being ready for painful compromises. What is required of Sharon is not painful compromises, what is required of Sharon is complete and immediate end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank including Arab Jerusalem and the Gaza strip. This is what is required from Sharon. An end to occupation that will leave not one single Israeli occupation soldier or one Jewish settler.
• Amre Mousa, Arab League Secretary General says: The Cease-fire will not last if settlements are not frozen and the siege is not lifted.
• According to Shimon Peres any talk of a unilateral separation is pure nonsense.
• Dr. Nabil Shaath will travel to Washington to meet with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
• The Israeli occupation troops arrested 8 French and Israeli activists demonstrating in support of ending the Israeli occupation and ending Jewish settlers attacks on the Palestinian people near Al- Khader town close to Bethlehem on the West Bank.
• Commenting on the PANORAMA program on Ariel Sharon's involvement in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, Dr. Ben Alofs a Dutch doctor, currently living in North-Wales said: In the summer of 1982 I was working as a nurse in West-Beirut, which at the time was being besieged by the Israeli army.
  When someone puts a venomous snake in a baby's cradle and the baby dies, the responsibility lies directly with the person who put the snake in the cradle.
  Therefore Israeli commanders Eitan, Dori and Yaron are directly responsible, but Ariel Sharon above all. He was the boss. He could have prevented this tragedy, but he wanted to force the Palestinians out of Beirut into Jordan, which was the 'Palestinian state' according to Sharon. Deir Yassin revisited. 'Two-legged animals' is how Begin called the Palestinians in 1982. Eitan talked about 'drugged cockroaches in a bottle'. This dehumanization of the Palestinians was and still is the cause of the callous disregard in the Israeli army for Palestinian life.

Wednesday June 20, 2001

Main Headlines

• President Arafat calls for the prompt dispatching of international observer force to the occupied Palestinian territories. President Arafat said that Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories are a constant threat to the agreed upon cease-fire.
• UN Coordinator of activities in the occupied Palestinian territories Terje Larson affirms the importance of deploying international observers' force to monitor the implementation of the Mitchell report recommendations.
• Sharon appoints an Israeli Shabak agent accused of murdering two handcuffed Palestinians as his advisor for 'terror affairs.'
• While its occupation troops tighten the siege on most of the occupied Palestinian territories, Sharon's cabinet meets today to reconsider its so-called cease-fire.
• Jewish settlers' attack Palestinian civilians, burned three thousand olive trees in the northern West Bank, and attacked Palestinian fire extinguishing teams trying to put down the fires.
• Two Palestinians were killed yesterday when Jewish settlers ran them over in two separate incidents in the West Bank. In Khan Younis, Israeli tanks opened its heavy machine guns on Palestinian youth injuring 4 of them seriously. In Biet Fourick village near Nablus, a 5-year-old child was shot and gravely injured when Israeli occupation forces surrounding the village opened fire on the child's family while trying to return home to their village.
• A Jewish settler ran over a Palestinian boy near Tulkarm, stopped and carried the boy to a hospital in Israel and informed the boys' family of the incident. The settler informed the family that the incident was not deliberate.
• Practicing for the real thing, Israeli F 16 fighter jets conduct air raids on Gaza. A French human rights activists calls on the world community to isolate Israel until it ends its occupation and stops its atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Tuesday June 19, 2001

Main Headlines

• Addressing an Arab League follow up committee meeting held in Amman yesterday, President Arafat said the cease-fire will not last if the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people is not stopped, the siege and closure on the Palestinian territories and people are not lifted, and Jewish settlements construction on occupied Palestinian territories is not freezed. President Arafat said the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is extremely grave and there must be intense and urgent international efforts including the dispatching of an international observers and monitoring force in order to defuse the conflict and confrontation before things get out of the hands of all of us.
• Jewish settlers attack Palestinian civilians, burned fields, vehicles and equipment in Palestinian areas near Nablus, Tul karm and qalkilya in the West Bank. In Gaza, the Israeli occupation troops established two new positions for its occupation forces on Palestinian land in area A. Israel does not honor any of its commitments and never keep or implement agreements with the Palestinian people.
• A trilateral Palestinian Israeli American security meeting took place yesterday. The meeting was tense and produced no tangible results. It was agreed that another meeting will be held tomorrow. A Palestinian official said that security meetings that have no political bearings will prove to be useless.
• President Arafat received a telephone call from US Secretary of State yesterday and will meet with Spain's Prime Minister in Madrid today.
• The Israeli occupation authorities prevent Palestinian minister of post and telecommunications from travelling to Egypt from Gaza. Minister Imad Falouji was scheduled to meet his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo today and then travel to Amman and Damascus.
• A Jewish woman settler ran over a Palestinian man 75 years old with her car leaving him dead near Qalkilya in the West Bank.
• Determined to bring to justice all those responsible for the Sabra and Shartilla massacres where more than 1500 Palestinian refugees were slaughtered after Sharon's invasion of Lebanon and the occupation of the first Arab capital by Sharon's forces back in 1982, a group of Palestinian survivors are taking Sharon to court in Brussels/ Belgium accusing him of being a war criminal directly responsible for the massacres that took place in Sabra and Shatilla immediately after Sharon's forces occupied Beirut.
• The Israeli foreign ministry slams the BBC for airing a TV program investigating the possibility of indicting the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon for war crimes. Israeli officials labeled the BBC as anti Semitic, some thing the BBC rejected and refuted totally. Speaking on the BBC's PANORAMA program, Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University said, " There is no question in my mind that Sharon is indictable for the knowledge he had or should have had."
  Another legal expert, judge Richard Goldstone, a former chief prosecutor for the UN criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda said, " if the person who gave the command knows, or should know, that there is a situation where innocent civilians are going to be injured or killed, then that person is as responsible, in my book more responsible even, than the people who carry out the orders." An Israeli foreign ministry official said, the BBC program 'recycled an event that happened 19 years ago'. Forgetting perhaps that Israel does not forget events that took place 60 years ago.
• The Israeli Prime Minister Sharon dismisses any possibility of any kind of political meetings or even meetings between political leaders with the Palestinian leadership and people. Sharon has one thing on his agenda, security, and the security of Israel and his Jewish settlers. Security of the Palestinian people of course is not any of his concern.
  George Tenet, chief of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with William Burns, Miguel Angel Moratinos, and other international special envoys could be compared to a highly experienced bomb squad. They came to disarm a potentially catastrophic bomb that could destroy the entire region if it detonates. Unfortunately, their job is destined for a cataclysmic failure unless they uncover Israel's hidden agenda.
  Presently, the right wing Israeli government is assiduously working not only to abort the bomb squad's mission but to also assure the occurrence of an awesome explosion. Along with Israel's premier, right wing and often scandalously racist Israeli Ministers and political leaders are driving the entire region down the path of no return. With their actions, statements, and policies, these leaders will take the Middle East where the horrors committed could be so earth-shattering so as to never allow the clock of time to come back ticking with life. Mr. Tenet's attempt at diffusing this Middle East "bomb" was the ceasefire work plan, which both sides accepted. Following endless hours of negotiations, Mr. Tenet secured a Palestinian and Israeli agreement on a ceasefire work plan, which went into effect at 3:00pm on Wednesday 13 June.
  Less than an hour after the work plan went into effect and until writing this article, Israeli occupation forces took steps to further tighten their criminal siege against Palestinian cities, towns, and villages. Additionally, they conducted a number of incursions into Palestinian controlled areas and shelled a number of Palestinian residential areas, injuring at least three children. Israeli occupation forces also harassed, beat, and shot at Palestinian civilians traveling on foot on the roads in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Additionally, the occupation forces dug trenches around a number of Palestinian villages and towns, in effect sealing off more than 33 Palestinian villages from the rest of the world.
  These despotic measures directly contradict the Tenet work plan's fifth clause, which calls on Israel to take "demonstrable on-the-ground redeployment…within the first 48 hours of this one-week period". Additionally, the plan demand that Israel cease any "proactive 'security operations' in areas under [Palestinian control]". On Thursday 14 June, Israeli occupation soldiers in the Southern Gaza Strip brutally beat three Palestinian boys with metal wires and plastic whips. According to Nadia, the boys' mother, she was attempting to cross the Tufah checkpoint in the southern Gaza Strip when an Israeli occupation soldier asked her 6 year-old son Mahmoud to approach him. The soldier then hit the 6 year-old while his comrade thrashed the child with a plastic whip. Eyewitnesses reported that other soldiers also beat Ahmed (9 years old) and Khaled (4 years old) in the same manner. Meanwhile the boys' mother was held up at gunpoint. According to Dr. Hisham Abu Draz, head of the Emergency Section in Al-Amal (Hope) Hospital in the area, the boys were in bad condition upon arrival and were treated for severe bruises and cuts.
  The Tenet work plan specifically stated that Israel should cease all its attacks against "innocent civilian targets". Perhaps the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip had not read the Tenet plan yet. Or, perhaps their hostile sentiments towards Palestinian civilians surpass all description and transgress upon the most basic human feelings.
  The most dangerous development since the acceptance of the Tenet work plan was the Israeli occupation forces' protection and collusion with armed mobs of Israeli settlers. These settlers wreaked havoc in besieged Palestinian villages, and burned crops, in addition to fruit and olive trees.
  On 13 June, Ariel Sharon announced, "Palestinians can't have a sense that they can move on the roads with confidence. They have to be surprised at all times" and told his military forces that they need "to face them (Palestinians) with an endless amount of variables".
  Hours later, an Israeli settler group calling itself "Shalhevet Gilad" claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack, which killed 42 year-old Awni Haddad and injured three other Palestinians, while traveling on a road in Occupied East Jerusalem. Awni, who left behind him seven children was returning home after a long day's work. On 18 June, an Israeli settler ran over Ahmed Ali (81 years old) with his car in Qalqylia and killed him. Since agreeing to the Tenet cease-fire work plan, Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers have killed at least three Palestinian civilians.
  The Tenet work plan calls on Israel to rein in, among others, the mobs of armed Israeli settlers who have turned Palestinian civilians' lives into a living hell, destroyed their livelihoods and along with them any ray of hope for the future. "Israeli authorities will take action against Israeli citizens inciting, carrying out, or planning to carry out violence against Palestinians". To give the Tenet work plan the benefit of the doubt, the use of the word "violence" rather than terrorism when describing Israeli settler attacks could be forgone, although it should not be ignored.
  Atop of all their occupation forces' breaches of the work plan, Israeli officials had the audacity to charge the Palestinian Authority with "not doing enough". Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went as far as coming up with new conditions and "facts". On 14 June, he made the absurd announcement that he would not include any day where "violent incidents" occur during the "six-week cooling off period prescribed by [the Tenet work plan]"! Dani Naveh, Israeli Minister without Portfolio, agreeing with Mr. Sharon also stated, "We have a deterrent capacity and the Palestinians have to understand this". He then warned that if the Palestinians did not adhere to the cease-fire, Israel would have no choice but to take "far-reaching military action".
  The question of Israel's actions, which directly contradict the plan, begs itself. One has to wonder how Sharon and his cabinet can fathom a chance of success for the ceasefire if they only tighten their criminal grip on Palestinian civilians, rather than release it. The answer is that imagining any success to the ceasefire work plan is perhaps Ariel Sharon's worst nightmare.
  If the cease-fire is implemented, Sharon would be left with no choice but to freeze all Israeli settlement activities, including the imaginary "natural growth". Scarier yet, he would have to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership on the final status issues. Reaching this point of political wisdom and commitment to a lasting peace would be nothing short of political suicide for the old "bulldozer". After all, Sharon promised his constituents everything except the terms necessary for reaching a final status agreement with the Palestinian People.
  Ariel Sharon's hidden agenda is one that must be revealed and combated if the cease-fire is intended to succeed.

Monday June 18, 2001

Main Headlines

• Another Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces in Khan Younis yesterday. Ali Murad Abu Shaweesh 12 years old was killed and 4 others seriously wounded when Israeli tanks stationed close to the Jewish settlement of Jeni Tal fired its heavy machine guns on a group of boys in Al Amal neighborhood in the Palestinian city of Khan Younis in Gaza. At the same, the funeral of another 12 years old boy was taking place in the city.
• Jewish settlers continue their assaults on Palestinian land and property. The Israeli occupation army closes all dirt roads leading to Palestinian towns, cities d villages. Hundreds of Palestinian villages are isolated, people have no food, no medicine, and no work, unable to move and travel and are continually being harassed, beaten, and humiliated by Israeli occupation soldiers and Jewish settlers.
• Sharon refuses a request from UN Secretary General Koffi Annan to hold a three way meeting between President Arafat, Koffi Annan and Israel's foreign minister Shimon Peres.
• UN Secretary General says: If Sharon sticks to his current position, there will be no peace negotiations between the parties for the next hundred years.
• The British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC) investigates Sharon's war crimes. Most experts on international law interviewed by the BBC on its Panorama program yesterday believe that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could be indicted for the massacre of some 1500 Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
  In the program, broadcast last night and titled "Panorama - The Accused", the BBC also interviewed survivors of the massacre, Israeli officers who served in Beirut and members of the Christian Phalange, including Elie Hobeikeh, the man accused of leading the militiamen in the camps.
  The BBC noted that Sharon was asked for an interview, and his spokesman Ra'anan Gissin was interviewed on his behalf. Sharon's lawyer, Dov Weisglass, was also interviewed.
• Professor Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University, said that "there is no question in my mind that he [Sharon] is indictable for the knowledge he had or should have had. Sharon's specific command responsibility arises from the fact that it was he that gave the directions and orders that resulted in the Phalange entering the camp in September, 1982."
• In response to a question whether Sharon "could have been in any doubt about what would happen if you sent the Phalangists into an undefended Palestinian refugee camp," Morris Draper, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East in 1982, said:
  "You'd have to be appallingly ignorant ... I suppose if you came down from the moon that day, you might not have predicted it." "We were under the misguided belief ... We thought that after training them [the Phalanges] ... they would follow orders" Ra'anan Gissin said.
• The Israeli occupation soldiers and Jewish settlers in Hebron prevent a PEACE NOW Israeli delegation from visiting the Palestinian city of Hebron. Less than 400 Jewish settlers are holding a Palestinian city of 120 thousand Palestinians hostage. More than 30 thousand Palestinians are imprisoned on daily basis under curfew in order to satisfy Jewish settlers. Sharon's occupation army protects and encourages Jewish settlers to harass Palestinian civilians and property. Jewish settlers attacked and destroyed Palestinian businesses in Hebron and currently are illegally building another settler compound in the heart of the Palestinian city.
• President Arafat will travel to Amman today to attend an Arab League ministerial follow up committee meeting to be held in Amman today. The president received a telephone call from US Secretary General Colin Powell, the president asked the Secretary of State to make Israel adhere to its commitments to honor, implement and respect agreements, particularly those reached with the assistance of the US and carry the signatures of American officials. Collin Powell said yesterday that he will visit the Middle East if the cease-fire is maintained.
• In a letter to the diplomatic core in Palestine and Israel, Palestinian minister of culture and information warned from the continuing settlers' assaults on the Palestinian people. Abed Rabbo also regretted Sharon's objection to a proposed meeting between President Arafat, Peres and Kofi Annan.
• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat calls on the US to submit a complete parcel of actions that guarantee the complete implementation of the Mitchell report recommendations.
• Palestinian preventive security chief in the West Bank Jibril Rajoub warns Israel of not honoring its commitment to recent understandings.
• The American Congress studies the possibilities of cutting military aid to Egypt.
• Saudi Arabia's minister of defense raises the possibility of boycotting companies dealing with Israel.

Sunday June 17, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israeli occupation tanks bombarded Palestinian civilian areas in Rafah this morning and injured 8 Palestinians
• President Arafat met with UN Secretary General in Ramallah yesterday. President Arafat told Annan that the situation on the ground did not change much and requires international observer and monitoring force. Koffi Annan calls on strengthening the cease-fire and affirms a continuing role for the United Nations in the region.
• The PNA says: Israel does not comply with the cease-fire and encourages settlers' terror and atrocities against the Palestinian civilian population. Nothing new on the siege. Israel uses theatrical methods to distort international public opinion. Details of Israel's daily violations of the cease-fire can be seen on this Website under: Israeli breaches of cease-fire.
• Sources at the UN say: The cease-fire will not be sustained without a political solution.
• A communiqué issued by the European Summit in Gothenburg, Sweden, calls on Israel to end its siege of the occupied Palestinian territories and to freeze Jewish settlements construction immediately. The communiqué welcomed the cease-fire and said an opportunity for peace now exists between both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.
• A Palestinian security source in Gaza said: Israel returned its tanks to Martyrs junction near Netzarin settlement in Gaza.
• Part of his documentary film to record events that shaped the 20th century, the last president of the USSR Mr. M Ghorbatchev asks to interview President Arafat. Others interviewed by Gorbatchev are President Bush senior, Bill Clinton, Helmot Cole and Shimon Peres.
• China warns of any unilateral change on the status of Jerusalem.

Saturday June 16, 2001

Main Headlines

• Palestinians demonstrate in their thousands against Israel's non compliance with the Tenet understandings. Sharon's government continues with its policies of closure strangulation and siege. 36 Palestinians eight of whom are children were injured in confrontations with Israeli occupation army soldiers blocking Palestinian roads.
• Contrary to Tenet's understanding, Palestinian head of security forces along with some of his senior officers were prevented by Israeli occupation army units from travelling on some roads in Gaza.
• President Arafat will meet Kofi Annan in Ramallah today. Yesterday, President Arafat met with the Russian peace envoy.
• A Japanese journalist was injured by Israeli fir yesterday in Al- Bireh. Two members of a Palestinian Red Crescent society were injured when their ambulance came under Israeli fire near Halhul in the West Bank yesterday.
• An Israeli Palestinian security meeting held yesterday ended without any results. The Palestinian security team put the American team supervising the talks in the picture of Israel's violations of the Tenet understanding. The roads are still closed, the siege in place and Jewish settlers are still attacking Palestinian civilians, destroying Palestinian property, agriculture fields and uprooting trees.
• The Palestinian side accuses Israel of deceiving the world. Israel announces that it is lifting the siege, while in fact it is tightening it.
• EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says: Avoiding a Middle East war took precedence over the resumption of peace talks.
• 48 hours of lies and distortions, lifting the siege occurs only on the TV screens. Israel's ex Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu competes with Sharon and calls for the destruction of the Palestinian media infrastructure.
• Netanyahu calls on his boss Sharon to hit Palestinian airwaves stop importing paper for newspapers and close Palestinian TV and Radio stations.
• Israel's minister of transport says: It appears that a Jewish settler gang attacked a Palestinian vehicle, killed its driver and injured 4 of its passengers north east of Jerusalem last Thursday.
• Kofi Annan says, Sheba farms are Lebanese territories and that Israel will eventually withdraw from this land and return it to Lebanon.

Wednesday June 13, 2001

Main Headlines

• President Arafat and CIA director George Tenet held extensive talks last night. A Palestinian official source confirmed last night that president Arafat agreed to the American plan to reinforce the cease-fire. The president however affirmed his rejection to what Israel terms as buffer zones. A trilateral security meeting will be held today to workout details of the Tenet plan.
• The Israeli occupation forces admitted using flechette shells against Palestinians. In the latest murder Israel killed three Palestinian women by shelling their tent with internationally banned weapon. The 120 millimeter shells, each containing 8000 and 12000 five centimeter long steel darts, are fired by tank cannon and usually explode at a height of 500 meters, scattering the darts over a large "kill radius". They are highly lethal and inflict indiscriminate damage.
• A Palestinian young man died of his wounds yesterday and was buried in Biet Lahia. Naseem Nasser Agha 18 years young was hit by four Israeli occupation bullets while demonstrating in solidarity with Bir Ziet university students protesting the closure and the road blocks Israel placing on Palestinian roads to prevent Palestinians from travel, work, education and normal life.
• The Palestinian Arabs of Jerusalem have been lately exposed to more and more draconian Israeli measures against them personally and against their properties. Israeli occupation soldiers armed with M16's and other military gear are extensively employed throughout Arab East Jerusalem and the surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods. Jerusalemits with Blue Israeli ID's who pay Israeli municipal taxes, road taxes, health and national insurance fees find themselves unable to move freely in Arab Jerusalem, unable to use their vehicles, their neighborhoods lack all municipal services and are harassed and humiliated on Israeli checkpoints in their own city.
  Israel and the Israeli public are realizing more and more that the Palestinians of Arab East Jerusalem numbering according to Israeli statistics 230,000 and according to Palestinian statistics that includes other neighborhoods around Arab Jerusalem to be more than 400,000 Palestinians, are no different from Palestinians in Ramallah and Gaza, and that Arab Jerusalem can not be anything else except Palestinians and part of the Palestinian homeland. Thus Israel's more draconian measures and brutal force is being used more and more against Arab East Jerusalem and its indigenous Palestinian Arab population. Olmert, the Israeli so called mayor of West Jerusalem received his unequivocal answer from the Palestinian public of Jerusalem when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians carried Faisal Husieni's gasket and buried him in the grounds of Al- Aqsa Mosque beside his father and his Grand father Mousa kazem Al- Hussinie, one of Jerusalem's great Palestinian mayors of this century, much before Teddy Kollek decided to immigrate to Palestine and long before this intruder so called mayor of West Jerusalem appeared as a curse with his face on the Jerusalem seen .
• President Arafat stresses the need to immediately lift the siege and to stop all Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.
• In a report carried by Reuters, Israel's Prime Minister Sharon confesses to his inability to provide personal and collective security to the Israeli public.
• The Palestinian Intifada caused much economic and other damages to the Israeli society. Latest reports on the unemployment figures in Israel states that 48 thousand Israelis lost their jobs due to Intifada related acts of resistance.
• The Israeli occupation tightens its siege on Palestinian cities towns and villages. Under the protection of Israeli occupation soldiers, Jewish settlers burned a gas station and a number of Palestinian vehicles in the northern West Bank. Israeli bulldozers destroyed large areas of Palestinian farmland and destroyed and uprooted thousands of olive trees near Tamoun and Jenin in the same area.

  In Rafah, Gaza strip, Israeli tanks fired its shells on the 'peace neighborhood' in the city injuring several Palestinian civilians.

• In a letter to President Arafat, Japan's foreign minister expressed her support for the Mitchell report and the Jordanian Egyptian plan.
• For a change, Martin Indyk, outgoing American ambassador in Tel Aviv says: Palestinian demands on Israel to lift the siege are legitimate. Indyk also said that Israel is required to freeze Jewish settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories including what Israel terms as 'natural growth.'
• Citing protecting US national interests, President Bush postpones a decision to relocate US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for another six months.
• Israel places a Palestinian doctor under administrative detention. The Doctor, Samer Awartani was arrested on the Karamah bridge coming home from attending a seminar on the Israeli occupation held at Oxford university in the UK. A spokesman for the British Consulate in Arab East Jerusalem expressed the British government's concern for the health and well being of Samer Awartani. The Consulate inquired about the reasons behind Awartani's arrest, but received no adequate answers.

Tuesday June 12, 2001

Main Headlines

• A Palestinian man was killed and another passerby was injured when a booby trapped car exploded in Tulkarm. Palestinian sources in the city accused Sharon's government of committing this crime and many other similar explosions in the Palestinian territories over the last few weeks.
• Yesterday morning, in Arab East Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers destroyed a Palestinian house, home of two Palestinian families. Brothers Faraj and Samih Hirbawi and their families of 16 people were ordered to evacuate their homes early in the morning. Israeli bulldozers accompanied by a large number of Israeli occupation soldiers forced the families out, and under gun point, kept other Palestinians in the neighborhood away while the bulldozers ripped the homes into pieces. The young families of Faraj and Samih Hirbawi are now homeless.
• Israeli airforce jets flew low in Gaza, and Israeli tanks entered Palestinian areas. Sharon, flexing his muscles, thinks he can scare Palestinians. Fortunately he, his army and all weapons in his arsenal will not frighten a young Palestinian boy. This is a fact. Sharon and his army have no deterring power over the Palestinian people, a people willing to pay with their lives for their freedom, and put an immediate end to the most horrific occupation of all, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
• An American Israeli Palestinian security meeting held in West Jerusalem last night ended in failure. The Palestinian position is that security matters are a function of a political settlement. Without political movements and immediate changes on the ground , security can not be achieved for any one. Israel is imposing a siege on the occupied Palestinian territories, people are imprisoned in their towns, cities and villages, the occupation is continuing and Sharon refuses to return to peace negotiations. In the mean time, settlement construction is going on and financial incentives for Jewish settlers are inciting Jewish settlers to move into the occupied Palestinian territories.
• President Arafat's popularity in the Palestinian street is rising. Also on the increase is the Palestinian Public support for resistance operations against Jewish settlements and Israeli occupation apparatus in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Nabil Shaath in Brussels says, "We are far away from the edge of the abyss and Sharon's government policies are the reasons for that."
• Javier Solana says: "The coming few days are very critical for the peace process and peace efforts."
• Maariv Israeli newspaper yesterday revealed that Israeli security organs recommended to Barak the elimination of President Arafat and the PNA. Barak passed this recommendation on to Sharon.
• President Arafat received a phone call from US Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday. European peace envoy to the Middle East says: "The only way to build confidence is for Israel to freeze settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories completely."
• Jordan is said to have issued instructions not to allow Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories into Jordan. Jordanian official sources said the measure is only temporary.

Monday June 11, 2001

Main Headlines

• Thousands of Palestinians participated in the funerals of the three Palestinian women murdered by the Israeli occupation army early morning yesterday. The tent in which the women, all of the same family live, were hit by Israeli tank shell using illegal internationally prohibited munitions made of flechettes. Flechettes are small dart -shaped projectiles clustered in an explosive warhead, dropped as a missile from an airplane or as in our case fired by an Israeli occupation army tank.
• Another Palestinian young man died of his wounds yesterday in Rafah, In the West Bank, a 44-year man died on while on his way to hospital. The man suffered of a kidney failure and died while waiting in an ambulance taking him to hospital in Nablus. The Israeli occupation forces blocking the roads on the entrance to Nablus prevented the ambulance from passing thus causing the death of the man Amin Mahmoud Awad. A Palestinian official held the Israeli occupation army, its military and political commanders as responsible for the death of Amin Awad.
• Israeli occupation army tanks and heavy machine guns this morning indiscriminately shelled the Palestinian town of Biet Rima near Ramllah in the West Bank. A 60-year-old woman Zhour Rimawi was seriously injured from the Israeli tank fire, many Palestinian homes in the village were severely damaged. Israeli soldiers also stormed into the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, terrorized Palestinian women and children and arrested many young men after beating them severely.
• In the last few days, Israeli occupation forces uprooted 2500 olive trees near Abud, Nablus and Ramallah, and ripped apart large areas of fertile Palestinian land.
• The Israeli prime minister Sharon intends to appoint an Israeli officer who was responsible for murdering two handcuffed Palestinians in what is known as bus 300 case as Sharon's advisor on terrorism.
• After holding a meeting with President Arafat in Ramallah yesterday, Sweden's Prime Minister Goran Persson called for the establishment of an international coalition to protect the peace process. President Arafat and the Palestinian people are completely in favor of bringing a joint European American observation and monitoring force to oversee the cease-fire and to protect the Palestinian civilian population. Israel is adamantly opposed to an international force be it American, European or of any other sort, so that its atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories and that of its Jewish settlers remain unexposed.
• The American envoy Bill Burns 'regrets' the killing of the three Palestinian women in Khan Younis. The Israeli occupation army is still investigating, as it is still investigating the murder by its occupation forces of hundreds of Palestinian children such as Mohammad Al- Durra and others.
• A three way Palestinian Israeli American security meeting scheduled for yesterday was postponed until today. Palestinian Minister of information and culture Yaser Abd Rabboh said yesterday that the Palestinian side handed the Palestinian reply to Tenet's suggestion to the American side yesterday.
• Israel is still imposing its siege and closure on the occupied Palestinian territories, its occupation forces never stopped it barbaric practices against the Palestinian civilian population, its tanks and heavy machine gunfire, snipers and death squads never stopped harming the Palestinian civilian population. The Israeli occupation army is protecting Jewish settlers wreaking havoc in Palestinian land, stealing Palestinian water and destroying Palestine life and environment.
• Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmad Abdul rahman said, the PNA will not arrest any Palestinian who participated in the legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Sunday June 10, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israeli tanks stationed near Netzarim settlement in Gaza killed three Palestinian women and injured three others two seriously. Israeli occupation tanks around midnight last night hit the tent in which the Palestinian family was living in. Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered Palestinian areas in Dir al Balah, Rafah and khanYounis destroyed a Palestinian police position and caused damage to a Palestinian college of education.
• In Ramallah, for the third day running, Israeli occupation forces opened fire on Bir ziet university students trying to break the road block placed by the occupation authorities on the main road connecting Ramallah with Bir Ziet. Thousands of students, accompanied by lecturers and other university staff marched peacefully towards the road block, Israeli soldiers manning the road block immediately showered the demonstrators with poisonous gas bombs, tear gas and stun grenades. Live fire and rubber coated steel bullets were used to disperse the demonstrations. 16 Palestinian students and journalists were injured. The marching students managed to open the road and thousands of students were able to go through. Israeli occupation enforcement's however blocked the road again. The students and teachers will continue marching until the Israeli occupation authorities remove the blockade imposed by Sharon's government on all Palestinian villages, towns and cities.
• 853 Palestinian high school students are in Israeli jails. Israel prevented those students from taking their exams. 55 other students were unable to set their exams because they lost their lives in the current Palestinian uprising against the Israeli barbaric occupation of Palestinian land. The 55 were murdered by Sharon and his occupation army.
• Despite the closure and occupation atrocities, Palestinian high school students began setting the matriculation exams yesterday. President Arafat visited halls where exams are taking place, spoke to students and encouraged them to work hard in order to succeed. President Arafat said, the Palestinian people value education and knowledge and are one of the most educated people in the region.
• Another Palestinian Israeli security meeting will take place in Ramallah to day. The meeting will be held in the presence of American security personnel. The American side is expected to receive Palestinian and Israeli replies to a formulae put forward by the Americans on security issues.
• President Arafat received phone calls from President Mubarak of Egypt, from Colin Powell, and from Kofi Annan. President Arafat expressed his hopes that international efforts will succeed in removing the Israeli aggression. A Palestinian delegation met with American envoy ambassador Burnes and suggested establishing an international monitoring group to oversee implementation of cease-fire.
• President Arafat congratulated Prime Minister Blair on the re-election of the labor party for office in Britain Thursday.
• Israeli government sources say: The cease-fire announced by Sharon more than two weeks ago excludes the assassination of Palestinians. President Arafat informed the US, the EU and the UN that Israel killed 23 Palestinians since Sharon announced his so-called cease-fire and injured hundreds of Palestinians.
• Sharon wants the PNA to be responsible for the security of its occupation in areas B and C under full Israeli security control. Sharon demands from President Arafat to stop throwing every stone and every bottle at Israeli occupation soldiers. And holds Arafat responsible for any attack on Israelis inside the green line. President Arafat's answer the cease-fire cover the areas under Palestinian full control only, area 'A'. The PNA is not responsible for the security of the occupation in areas B and C or inside Israel.
• Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warns of a new war in the Middle East. Crown prince Abdullah hold Sharon responsible for the violence that swept the area in the last few months. The crown prince said, the Middle East is sitting on a powder keg that could explode at any minute, warning that the devastation of which will not be limited to the Middle East only but will reach Europe and beyond. Crown Prince Abdullah made his views clear to a German magazine yesterday.
• The Israeli occupation soldiers are tightening the siege on occupied Palestinian territories, and Palestinian children demand world protection. The occupation soldiers arrest beat and humiliates Palestinians on roadblocks. Israeli soldiers appear to enjoy Palestinian sufferings on roadblocks and enjoy torturing young Palestinian men and young boys. Israeli violence in the occupied Palestinian territories is being practiced in the Israeli society. Israeli occupation forces prevent food and medical supplies from entering Dir ballout and many other Palestinian villages. In the meantime Jewish settlers attacked the villages of kafl Harris, Yabad , azzoun and villages in the Jenin area. Ten Jewish settlers attacked 20 years old Palestinian man and caused him serious injury, the young man Mohammed Turkman was savagely beaten by Jewish settlers while he was working his fields on the eastern entrance to his village. The people of the village found Turkman unconscious and immediately took him to Jenin hospital. Turkman is in a very serious conditions, he received injuries to his face eyes, mouth and teeth.
• One thing for sure talking peace has been profitable to Israel…the world has rewarded Israel with trade deals opening markets etc. bigger donations from the U.S etc.
  The peace deal for the Palestinians is a mirage..Whenever they get closer to the Israelis position the Israelis move further away..Deadlines are delayed and new facts on the ground cloud talks.
  The Israelis tactic is simple..delay indefinately..milk as much money as possible and plough it into the settlements.Whenever the Palestinians get frustrated blame it on them say they don't want peace.
  Peace talks did not stop the Israelis encroachment but accelerated it with the additional funds generated by well-intentioned countries..
• There will be no peace as long as the Greater Israel dream holds sway over Israelis..What will kill that dream is a campaign on the scale of South Africa ...a campaign that destroyed apartheid without a shot being fired...ordinary people sick of governments and multinationals just simply boycotted and protested..

Saturday June 9, 2001

Main Headlines

• This morning, the Israeli occupation troops are still blocking Bir Ziet University students from reaching the university. Fascist Israeli occupation soldiers manning the roadblock on the main road linking Ramallah to Bir Ziet clash with Palestinian students and other civilians injuring many Palestinian students. As of now, no news of fatalities. The students and the Palestinian population are very angry because of the Israeli inhuman siege and closure Israel is imposing on the Palestinian people under occupation.
• Sharon's government increases its verbal attacks against the person of President Arafat. Palestinian, European and other world dignitaries voiced their indignation at Sharon's uttering describing it as pure poison.
  On his part, Israel's defense minister Ben Elezer told newspapers that President Arafat has lost what Eliezer termed his historical mission. Israeli political annalists describe these statements and others from leading Israeli right wing officials in the current Israeli government and establishment as a beginning of a process of de-legitimization of President Arafat and the Palestinian leadership. Right wing Jewish extremists and Jewish groups in Washington are currently lobbying the American congress to rescind the Law allowing diplomatic contacts and cooperation with the Palestinian people and leadership.
• On the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories, Sharon's government is continuing to strangle the Palestinian population. 3.2 million Palestinians are currently imprisoned incapable of conducting any normal day work. Pregnant women are giving birth in cars waiting on Israeli road blocks, high school children unable to reach their schools to set exams, fathers and mothers who still have work unable to reach their work places.
  In Gaza and the West Bank, Sharon's government is preventing fuel from reaching Palestinian areas, Diesel operated water pumps are out of work, and water is being cut off, effectively rendering millions of Palestinians already receiving rationed amount of water from receiving any.
• Sharon's government is stopping Israeli Banks from transferring money to Palestinian banks. Israeli commentators and political analysts are encouraging Sharon to wage a harsher economic war on the Palestinian people. Rannan Gissin, a spokesman and media advisor to Sharon says: Israel have to appear as the under dog to win the war, using tanks and fighter jets against the Palestinian people is making us loose the media war. Israelis now are advocating less obvious methods to strangle the Palestinian society and to force surrender on the Palestinian people. A combination of extreme economic measures and military means are being used by the Sharon government against the Palestinian people under occupation.
• Billions of Israeli shekels are allocated to build a wall in the occupied Palestinian territories to separate the Palestinian people - not land- from Israel. The wall Sharon is planning to build is inside the occupied Palestinian territories, west of the road, Sharon's so called border police will operate, on its east, the Israeli occupation army will be continue to operate.
  A majority in Israel some of whom might have been described as sane people are advocating building this wall as a solution to the problem. Others however like some journalists working for haaretz newspaper think this wall as complete waist of time and not one Israeli Shekel should be used to build it.
  It is very obvious that no matter what Sharon's government or any other government in Israel will do, there is no escaping the need for a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land must be terminated immediately. No amount of Israeli avoiding this subject will change this fact. Ending the occupation should become the slogan.
  Salvation for both the Israeli people and the Palestinian people is inherent in the concept of a peaceful separation between both societies, this can only be achieved by Israel and the Israeli population realizing that the Israeli occupation must end, and the language of force and the doctrine of deterrence many Israeli still believe in has no chance of ending the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
  The Israeli occupation army has no clout what so ever, long ago Sharon and his occupation army lost their deterrence, not because the Israeli occupation can not inflict much damage, torture, hardships and dehumanization of the Palestinian people, but because the Israeli army used all in its arsenal against the Palestinian people, and they have nothing more to use that could frighten even a Palestinian child.
• The degree of Palestinian suffering made them immune to what Sharon is capable of. Poverty, hunger, oppression, stolen freedom, the loss of one's dignity, the daily killing, the daily humiliation, are only but few of the long list of Palestinian suffering on the hands of the Jewish occupiers and Jewish settlers. Sharon and his public must not be surprised if an overwhelming Palestinian majority do not believe Sharon and oppose stopping the uprising and Intifada against the Israeli occupation by all means. Sharon and the Israeli public must not be surprised that hundreds if not thousand of Palestinian youngsters are pushed to fight the Israeli occupation and to die in defense of their land and people as this is the only dignified way out of this miserable mess Palestinians are living in if not for themselves then for their families.
• The Israeli road blocks are still in place, and the Palestinian street sees no change what so ever after three days of continuous talking with American and Israeli officials.
• Bill Burns said to have met President Arafat and pledged to workout a timetable to implement the Mitchell report as a package.
• President Arafat had marathon talks with European, American and Russian envoys. A security meeting said to have taken place in Ramallah yesterday, attending the meeting were Palestinian security officials, Israeli and American security officials. In parallel, President Arafat insists on political negotiations.
• EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the Prime Minister of Sweden will be arriving in the region today. International efforts are being exerted to turn a clumsy cease-fire into a solid long lasting cease-fire.
• President Arafat said yesterday that all Palestinian factions support his declaration last week on the issue of cease-fire. President Arafat says, there is an international and Arab agreement to implement the Egyptian Jordanian initiative and the recommendations of the Mitchell report.
• France helps the Palestinian Authority implement certain security measures in the West Bank and Gaza.
• President Arafat postpones his visit to Spain scheduled for today. US Secretary of State Colin Powell held telephone conversation with President Arafat yesterday.
• Palestinian General Secondary education Certificate's exams begin today throughout the occupied Palestinian territories/ Palestine.
• Six Palestinian civilians injured by Israeli gunfire yesterday including a boy in the village of Housan near Bethlehem. Jewish settlers uproot trees and burn wheat crop in Dier Nizam and Aboud villages in the West Bank. A Palestinian journalist was hit and a poisonous material thrown at her in Hebron yesterday.
• Israeli peace activists demonstrate in west Jerusalem yesterday, Women in Black, an Israeli peace group demanding the immediate termination of the Israeli occupation demonstrated in the city yesterday.
• Bethlehem losses due to Israeli siege and closure and due to tank shelling of the city and its environs reached US $ 250 million over the last few months.

Thursday June 7, 2001

Main Headlines

• While Jewish settlers are going on a rampage in Lebban and Sawyeh villages near Nablus in the West Bank, Israeli occupation soldiers are busy arresting Palestinian children in Hebron. Settlers wreaked havoc in Nablus area, burning homes, a school and wheat crop. Protected by the Israeli army Jewish settlers occupied a Palestinian house, and raised their flag on it. Never mind the Palestinian family, the father, the mother and their ten children, they are only Palestinians! Settlers and occupation troops injured 9 Palestinians who came out to defend their villages and confronted Jewish settlers and occupation troops with stones.
• In Hebron Jewish settlers attacked Palestinians trying to rebuild their shops and business destroyed earlier by Jewish settlers. Journalists and cameramen were hurt after being attacked by settlers. The Israeli occupation army protecting Jewish settlers in the Palestinian city arrested Palestinian children. News network all over the world watched fully armed Jewish soldiers - at least four of them - surrounding a Palestinian boy hardly 10 years old. The boy shouted his mum to come and protect him from the soldiers.
• 13 students from Bier Ziet University were injured yesterday in confrontations with Israeli occupation soldiers blocking the road leading to the University. Israeli occupation soldiers supported by tanks and armored vehicles are blocking lengths of Palestinian roads connecting Palestinian towns, cities and villages. In Rafah, Israeli occupation soldiers bombarded the city. Protected by Israeli tanks, the Israeli occupation bulldozers are digging a 10-meter deep trench along the Palestinian borders with Rafah. Israel claims this trench will prevent smuggling of weapons into the Palestinian city of Rafah from Egypt.
• To the Palestinian people it has been known for long that Israel is a racist country, racism is rampant in Israel in every field. Jews do not deny saying that Israel is the state of the Jews, this effectively means, any one who is not a Jew can not consider Israel his state, its laws are discriminatory, behavior of its police and soldiers, the structure of its government and institutions.
  The Israeli army deals with the Palestinian people whether they are Israeli Arabs or from the West Bank and Gaza as their enemy. Of course in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel is not just imprisoning millions of Palestinians in tightly netted enclosed areas numbering more than 124 area, Israel began putting gates locked with keys and manned by Israeli occupation soldiers.
  These gates are many in Gaza, designed to make Palestinians in their thousands stand in queues, wait for the soldier to open the gates, then depending on the mood of the soldiers manning these gates, Palestinians can or can not enter to go about their business. Yesterday, a gate on the main road leading to Al- Khader, Battir, Nahalin, and other Palestinian villages was inaugurated by Israel. At least thirty thousand Palestinians from these villages are closed in and need to go through the gate if they want to go to work, to schools, to hospitals or to pray …etc.
• The atrocities, the racism, the arrogance and the most ugly of practices are being implemented by the Jewish state against the Palestinian people. No one knows why should Israel persist in its suffocation of a whole Palestinian nation.
• The Israeli public in Israel proper and the Palestinian people are hostages to the whims of Sharon and Jewish settlers illegally occupying Palestinian land and homes in Arab East Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza. Jewish settlers and their extreme right wing supporters demonstrated yesterday in there thousands in West Jerusalem calling on the Sharon government to destroy the PNA and the Palestinian people. Sharon, a life long terrorist called President Arafat a terrorist, his defense minister Ben Eliezer said that President Arafat ended his historical mission, effectively calling for his replacement, and the right wing papers advocating right wing militant and extreme tendencies described CIA chief George Tenet's visit to the region as mission impossible.
• Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia says: Israel will pay the price of each drop of Palestinian and Arab blood.
• A French minister says: It is not in the interest of any body to replace Arafat. A French Parliamentarian announces the resumption of dialogue between Palestinian and Israeli parliamentarians.
• Shimon Peres says, if we announced President Arafat as a terrorist, then we will not be able to negotiate with him.
• Palestinian Cabinet secretary Ahmad Abdul Rahman says: Sharon is insisting on continuing war and escalating violence. An Arab Israeli member of the Knesset says: The suicide bomber of the Tel Aviv Disco came from Jordan and had an Israeli visa in his passport. The PNA as nothing to do with it.
• Special advisor to President Arafat Nabil Abu Rdieneh says: Israel is practicing the art of cheating, and robbery in order not to release Palestinian money held in its treasury. Israel collects taxes and other duties on Palestinian imports and is supposed to transfer this money on monthly basis to the Palestinian treasury. Israel did not transfer any Palestinian money since last June.
• International efforts are continuing to reduce tension in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. CIA director Tenet visited Cairo, Amman and will meet President Arafat in Ramallah today.
• EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will visit our region very shortly. It is apparent that the world community is not leaving the area and international personalities are constantly meeting with President Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon. This morning, President Arafat will meet Yossi Beilin an Israeli Knesset member and a member of the Israeli peace camp. The Israeli Labor party is preparing for the election of its new leader, so far only two are competing, the current Israeli defense minister Ben Elezer and the Knesset speaker Avraham Burg. It was reported yesterday that Haem Ramon decided not to compete for the top post in Labor. It is expected that Shlomo Ben Ami will decide very soon if he is going to compete for the Labor leadership. Political analysts believe the only candidate who can defeat any right wing Likud leader is Ehud Barak who was ousted last Feb. Sharon's three months in power in Israel witnessed an unprecedented deterioration in the status of Israel be it in the economic, security international status or any other relevant field. Sharon's lack of any diplomatic option or initiative is leaving Israel and the Israeli public in a situation of disarray. Sharon can not bring to life his ideology of greater Israel, yet he can not take the bold move necessary to bring peace, this being the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Washington denies the existence of an agreement with Sharon on freezing settlements. Washington also protested Israel's refusal to allow Palestinian Americans from travelling in and out of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Wednesday June 6, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israeli occupation soldiers manning a road block on the main street linking Ramallah to Bir Ziet and Bir Ziet University injured six Palestinian students and caused untold psychological and physical damage to thousands of Palestinians mainly students, teachers and university staff. Israel places few soldiers on the main road and orders the road closed, hundreds of vehicles soon accumulate and people get stuck in the middle of no where. On majority of roadblocks throughout the occupied Palestinian territories movement of Palestinian traffic is limited into small confined areas. At certain times people of certain age can walk across, others are turned back. Old people and women and children carrying bags and belongings are seen walking, some times while stones and bullets are being exchanged between Palestinian youngsters throwing stones at the occupation soldiers and Israeli occupation soldiers firing live bullets and poisonous gas in return. This is one seen of our lives in Palestine imposed on our people by war criminal Sharon and his government. Yet Sharon has the nerve to call President Arafat a terrorist. Sharon should look into his mirror to see who is the terrorist.
• Not satisfied with all the crippling measures Israel is taking against the Palestinian people and the PNA, Sharon's government ordered its banks not to be used to transfer money into Palestinian banks. Sharon's government prevents Palestinian authority ministers from travelling between Palestinian cities towns and villages. Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was unable to leave his hometown Jericho in order to be with President Arafat in Ramallah to receive foreign dignitaries visiting Palestine.
• Israeli assassination squads attempted to blow up a Palestinian man in his car in Tulkarm yesterday. The Palestinian man was seriously injured and was taken to hospital in the city.
• On the occasion of the 34th anniversary of its occupation of Palestinian land Israel escalates its aggression against the Palestinian people. On June 5 1967 Israeli soldiers entered the Palestinian territories as invaders firing at the Palestinian people, on June 5, 2001, the Israeli soldiers are still firing at the Palestinian people.
• Javier Solana EU Security and Policy Chief says: A European American peace initiative will be presented in the coming few days.
• A European monitoring group arrived in Biet Jala to monitor a cease-fire in the area. The CIA director will arrive in the region today.
• President Arafat discusses the current volatile situation with President Mubarak of Egypt and President Ben Ali of Tunis. The President met EU special peace envoy Moratinus and received a telephone call from US Secretary of State Powell, met US ambassador to Tel Aviv Indyk.
• Responding to the filthy uttering of Sharon against President Arafat, Palestinian Minister of international Cooperation says: we don't want to remind Sharon of his past.
• A huge demonstration took place in Damascus yesterday in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Tuesday June 5, 2001

Main Headlines

• Today, June 5, is the 34th anniversary of the occupation of the Palestinian land in the West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem and Gaza. On June 5, 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack on Egypt and Syria. Jordan who had a defence pact' with Egypt entered the war unprepared and lost it. Israeli occupied Arab East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the whole of Sinai and the Golan Heights of Syria.
• The Israeli occupation authorities escalate its aggression. 25 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were injured yesterday, five very seriously when they confronted an Israeli occupation army unit that entered into Rafah to place concrete slabs and booby-trapped explosives on the city's borders with Egypt.
  Israeli tanks bombarded the town of Asira el-Shamaliyya, and the villages of Dir Estia, Dir Al-Ghsoon and Hebron. This morning, heavy machine guns fired indiscriminately into Palestinian houses in Khan Younis.
• Hospitals, transport and bakeries in Gaza and the West Bank are on the verge of complete paralysis because of severe shortages in fuel. The Israeli occupation is preventing fuel and other essential supplies from entering the occupied Palestinian territories. The West Bank and Gaza are divided now into 98 large prisons, where Palestinians cannot leave, go to work, or to study or to receive medical treatments.
• President Arafat received two phone calls from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Russia's foreign minister Ivanov. President Arafat yesterday held a meeting with Palestinian national and Islamic forces in Ramallah. Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced their acceptance of a cease-fire with Israel, but reserved the right to continue resisting the occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
• Arab League General Secretary Amre Moussa says: Israel wants to impose its terms on the Palestinian people. Moussa describes Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories as senseless and that they will backfire. Moussa called on Israel to rethink its expansionist and cruel policies against the Palestinian people and land.
• Washington acknowledges a reduction in the intensity of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Palestinian minister of information and culture does not exclude a high level meeting between high-ranking Palestinian and Israeli officials. EU's High Commissioner for Foreign Policy Solana calls for a meeting between President Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to discuss effective ways for implementing the Mitchell Committee report and recommendations.
• King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calls on President Bush to play a decisive role in solving the Arab Israeli conflict.
• King Abdullah of Jordan stresses the importance of a UN role in the Arab Israeli conflict.
• Haaretz newspaper says: The Israeli army is planning to divide the West Bank into eight separate areas.
• The Israeli police refuses to receive filmed documents prepared by members of the American Christian Team for Peace stationed in Hebron showing incidents, aggressive actions and attacks perpetrated by Jewish settlers in Hebron against the Palestinian population in the Palestinian city of Hebron.
• Israel doubts the Palestinian commitment to a cease-fire, and the PNA calls for an international monitoring committee to oversee the implementation of the cease-fire and the implementation of the Mitchell report recommendations.
• The family of a Palestinian man killed by Jewish settlers donates his organs to hospitals. A Jewish man received the heart of the assassinated Palestinian.
• President Bashar Assad of Syria warns against surpassing international legitimacy resolutions.

Monday June 4, 2001

Main Headlines

• Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories near the village of Burqa fired at a Palestinian vehicle causing the deaths of two brothers and seriously injuring a third. Israeli occupation forces attempted to assassinate a Palestinian man, a member of the Islamic Jihad group. An explosive charge was detonated from a distance when the car driven by Mohammad Bsharat 27 was traveling on a main road in his village of Tammoun near Jenin.
• Israeli occupation troops using bulldozers destroyed lengths of the main road linking the northern West Bank from the southern West Bank. The bulldozers also destroyed telephone cables, electricity cables and rendered the road unusable. 3.2 million Palestinians in the West bank and Gaza are currently in one big prison. Fuel and food is not allowed into Gaza and all others supplies are prevented from entering into the West Bank. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian school children started their summer holiday. Young people have no hope and can only see Israeli occupation soldiers surrounding their homes, towns and villages. Movements between the various parts of the Gaza strip is totally forbidden. Israeli tanks and heavy military are blocking roads and preventing the movement of traffic and individuals. Israeli tanks shelled Palestinian homes in Tal Sultan neighborhood in Rafah in Gaza.
• Israeli occupation troops prevents people below the age of 45 from leaving Ramallah and Al Bireh cities. Palestinians are also prevented from visiting their loved ones incarcerated in Israeli jails.
• The crossing points between the West Bank and Jordan and between Gaza and Egypt are closed. Also Israel closed all crossings linking the West bank into Israel and Gaza into Israel.
• Israeli occupation forces arrest Palestinian young men, beat and humiliate them and make them kneel for long hours in the summer heat.
• Jewish settlers put their hands on large areas of Palestinian land in Deir Al- Balah to expand the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom. The population of the Palestinian villages of Bet Djan and Beit Furik near Nablus have no water to drink. The population there and in all Palestinian villages that have no running water (no water pipe network) are in urgent need for constant supplies of water that can only reach those villages and people by mobile water tanks. While the roads are blocked and people and vehicles are not allowed to travel on the roads, the water shortage in these areas can only become more dangerous.
• Jewish settlers in Hebron storm into an Islamic Waqf building. Israeli bulldozers destroy telephone exchanges and cables in Abu Dis and Bethlehem in the West Bank.
• Jewish settlers attacked a Palestinian worker inside Israel, causing him serious injury to his head and beat him all over his body. The man, 28 year old Suhail Dawood Abiat, was taken to Thabet Thabet hospital in his home town of Qalqilya.
• Sharon’s government plans to close 10 Palestinian offices in Arab Jerusalem and Abu Dis. At the moment all Palestinian mail is blocked, there is no mail service, Palestinian goods and imports in Israeli ports are frozen, and Israel refuses to pay Palestinian money collected by Israel as duties and customs on Palestinian goods.
• The monthly salary for the month of June for more than 100,000 civil service authority employees have not been paid yet. The purchasing power in the Palestinian street was never this low, it is almost like all economic activity has come to a stand-still. Raw material is not arriving, factories are working at minimum capacity, money is very scarce and people simply are unable to buy even to satisfy the minimum of their basic needs. Sharon’s government wants the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories to crawl on their knees. The question is will this happen. Time will only tell.
• The United States and Europe are pathetically searching for the means to cool the situation down. The amount of pressure exerted on President Arafat to announce a so-called cease-fire were immense, although Palestinian security forces and policemen have never been engaged with the Israeli occupation army. Palestinian security forces were attacked, prisons were destroyed, offices and means of communications for Palestinian security forces suffered a great deal of damage, transportation vehicles and even dormitories were badly damaged, police stations bombed etc…In such a situation, where people can’t move, and communications are none-existant, people are hungry and thirsty, employees not paid, how can any one function?
• Israel sent its paratroops to areas west of Qalqilya, and the Israeli airforce flew in Palestinian airspace above Palestinian towns, cities and villages breaking the sound barrier sending loud booms. This Israeli war of nerves, together with its economic war, will not scare the Palestinian people.
• 3.2 million Palestinian men, women, and children have been under the barbaric Israeli occupation since 1967. Their land, their water, their airspace stolen. Hundreds of thousands were injured and imprisoned. Israel stole the Palestinians’ freedom and inflicted humiliation, hunger, and illiteracy. Since September more than five hundred Palestinian men, women, and children were murdered by the Israeli government and the Israeli criminal army, thousands upon thousands were injured, yet instead of pressuring Israel to comply with international law and end its occupation of Palestinian land, Colin Powel and other European foreign ministers have the cheek to lay the blame on the Palestinian people and leadership. What a twisted world? What a warped mentality? With world leaders like that, the world can only expect a spiralling acceleration to doomsday. The old testament, the new testament and the Koran cannot be anything but true. Such inhumanity must end. No doubt about Armageddon. Just wait and see.

Sunday June 3, 2001

Main Headlines

• Frantic international efforts to avert a regional conflagration in Palestine and Israel. Israel escalates its threats and Washington sends CIA director to the region.
• President Arafat announced yesterday an immediate cease-fire. The ball is in the Israeli court and the Palestinian people and leadership are waiting for international efforts to implement the Mitchell Committee recommendations.
• Palestinian security officials confirm receiving written instructions from President Arafat to effect an immediate cease-fire.
• Israeli radio announces canceling Sharon’s cease-fire.
• The PNA warns against any Israeli attack on the Palestinian people and its institutions.
• Israeli occupation soldiers and Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories wage a terror campaign against the Palestinian people and property. Israeli occupation troops continue abducting Palestinians on the roads connecting towns, cities and refugee camps. Israel’s atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories are a never ending story unknown to a majority of the world population.
• The children of Jenin call on the international community to protect the Palestinian people.
• Israeli occupation forces fire live bullets at Palestinian young men trying to break the siege on Ramallah. Students, workers, doctors and the Palestinian civilian population at large is prevented from travelling from one place to the other. Now it takes five hours to cover the distance between Ramallah and Nablus, compared to 45 minutes before, Palestinians are not able to move and if they do they are at the risk of being shot to death. Israel imposes an atmosphere of fear on Gaza.
• Since the beginning of the Intifada, Israel destroyed 81 water wells in the occupied Palestinian territories. Large numbers of towns and villages in the occupied Palestinian territories have no running water. Those with water networks have no water in the pipes. Israel uses 80% of West Bank water resources, and keep 20% for Palestinian use. The 80% is diverted to Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, 400,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories consume more water than 3.2 million Palestinians. As a matter of fact the ratio of consumption between a Jew and a Palestinian is 10 to 1.
• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat calls on the American administration to send its peace envoy back to the region.
• Sharon’s government accuses the Palestinian National Authority of being deeply involved in ‘terror’ and holds the PNA responsible for the deteriorating situation.
• Reminiscent of the war of 1947 and 1948, Jewish gangs attacked Hassan Baik Mosque in the Arab city of Yaffa and Muslims praying in the mosque. The gangs attempted to go on the rampage in the city but were faced by the Palestinian Arabs of the city. Many Muslim worshippers were injured; cars and property were damaged.
• Israel closes the occupied territories to the outside world and places a very tight siege on each and every village, city, and town in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• PNA institutions and university campuses were evacuated fearing Israeli strikes against Palestinian institutions and the Palestinian civilian population.
• United Nations employees leave Gaza upon orders from the Israeli authorities.
• Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmad Abdul Rahman says: “The PNA rejects Israel’s language of threats and blackmail.”
• Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher contacted Shimon Peres and demanded that Israel not attack the PNA and the Palestinian people.
• In Arab Jerusalem, large numbers of people including foreign dignitaries descend on the Orient House to convey their deep sorrow for the loss of the Prince of Jerusalem, Faysal Al- Hussieni.
• Israeli occupation forces bombed Qabatia village in the northern West Bank injuring one Palestinian policeman. Jewish settlers inflict heavy losses on Palestinian agricultural crops in the northern West Bank.
• Israel takes stringent measures to isolate Arab Jerusalem. Hebron is closed off and isolated while Jewish settlers are moving freely under the constant protection of the Israeli occupation army.

Saturday June 2, 2001

Main Headlines

• In a statement issued by President Arafat and the Palestinian leadership, the President condemned the killing of civilians, be they Palestinians or Israelis, and condemned last night’s attack on Israelis in Tel –Aviv.
• 18 Israelis were killed and scores of others were injured in a suicide attack in Tel Aviv last night. It is reported that a Palestinian strapped with explosives mingled with a group of young Israelis about to enter into a dance club and blew himself up, killing himself and many others with him.
• The number of Palestinians killed so far by Israeli tank and sniper fire over the last eight months of Intifada/uprising against the Israeli occupation - exceeded 500 Palestinians, more than one third of them were children. The number of Palestinians injured in the same period is about 25,000, all injured by Israeli occupation soldiers. Israel uses tank fire, missiles, helicopter gunships, fighter jets, heavy machine guns, and rubber coated steel bullets against the Palestinian people. Israeli tanks and soldiers fire indiscriminately into Palestinian homes and residential areas.
• A 12 year old Palestinian boy died of his wounds sustained when his home came under Israeli tank fire few days ago. Five other Palestinian teenagers were shot and injured, one of them very seriously yesterday after being fired on by Israeli occupation army soldiers close to Al- Mintar crossing point in Gaza. In Hizma north of Jerusalem, a 17 year old young man wash shot dead by Israeli occupation soldiers and another young Palestinian boy was seriously injured. In the meantime in Nablus in the West Bank Jewish settlers are burning hundreds of dunums of Palestinian farmland and wheat crops, Jewish settlers from Itmar, a settlement illegally built on Palestinian land protected by the Israeli occupation army, uprooted and burned hundreds of olive and other fruit trees in the hilly area close to the settlement.
  On his part, Israeli housing minister Sharansky gave the go ahead to build 314 Jewish housing units at Adam’s settlement north of Jerusalem. Two days ago, the same minister gave the go ahead to build more than 700 units in Maleh Adumim and Alfe Menashe settlements in the West Bank.
• The Israeli ongoing occupation of Palestinian land, the daily suffering, the poverty, the siege, the ongoing indiscriminate shelling of Palestinian homes, land, trees and the killing of Palestinian children, men and women, young and old is responsible for the carnage that occurred in Tel Aviv, the one before that and all that may come in the future. Anymore killing and destruction Sharon government will perpetrate today, tomorrow or at any time in the future will be another exercise in futility because it will only bring more suffering, more agony and more destruction for all. Ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land is the only option. Israel’s fire power will not bring peace to Israelis and Israel. Only the power of logic, powers of taking the right and correct decision will bring peace to Israelis and Israel. The right decision is to freeze Jewish settlements and to announce Israel’s readiness to withdraw from Palestinian land occupied in the war of 1967, all the land occupied by Israel in 1967.
• The South African hero and renowned freedom fighter Nelson Mandela said yesterday that the only way to end the Israeli Arab conflict is for Israel to withdraw completely from all the land Israel occupied in June 1967, and for the Arab world to announce unequivocally that Israel can and should live in secure borders and to have peace with all its Arab neighbors. One cannot be fairer than that. The Palestinian people and leadership are ready and willing to accept Mandela’s recommendations. The Arab world we believe is ready for that too.