MARCH 2001

Saturday March 31, 2001

Main Headlines

• Palestinian demonstrations against the Israeli occupation cover all areas throughout the historical land of Palestine. Within the green line Palestinian masses commemorated Land Day. On March 30, 1976, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians who protested Israel's confiscation of Arab land.
• In the occupied Palestinian territories, the current government of Sharon, Zevey, and Liberman decides to distribute Palestinian land to Jewish settlers. Liberman, a Russian 'Jew' immigrated from Russia in 1987, and became Israel's minister of infra structure in the current Sharon government declared yesterday that his government will ratify a decision to give Palestinian land away to Jewish settlers free of charge. President Bush gave Sharon a green light, this is only one of the consequences, watch for more and more…
• Sharon's occupation army uses its tanks and heavy machine guns against Palestinian demonstrators and against Palestinian residential areas. Six Palestinian young men three of them teenagers were murdered yesterday by Sharon's occupation army. More than two hundred Palestinians were injured at least seven of whom are in critical conditions. Sharon's finger prints can be seen in the quality and quantity of gunfire used against the Palestinian population and the increasing numbers of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded over the last few days. More massacres are being added to Sharon's record, and many more will occur very soon if this maniac is not stopped immediately. President Bush who adopted Sharon's twisted logic and subsequently gave him the green light to intensify the killing and bombardment of the Palestinian people, their cities, villages and refugee camps will be held equally responsible for the atrocities Sharon is perpetrating.
• Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat says: Washington decided to protect the occupation. Erekat said, the American vito against sending international forces to protect the Palestinian people tantamount to protecting the occupiers and giving them a free hand to strangle and suffocate the Palestinian will to resist the Israeli occupation and demand Palestinian freedom. Palestinian Minister of Information Abed Rabbo says: the American administration did not respond yet to the joint Egyptian Jordanian paper on resumption of peace talks.
• The Palestinian leadership issued a statement accusing Sharon's government of committing a barbaric crime against the Palestinian people. Helicopter gunships, tanks, heavy machine guns and gunboats were used to shell Palestinian civilian and police positions on Thursday killing and injuring more than 90 Palestinians. The Israeli attack came few hours after the Bush administration vetoed a UN proposed resolution calling for the dispatch of international forces to protect the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• All weapons and ammunition used by the Israeli Sharon's occupation army Are American made and given to Israel as gifts and assistance. Apparently on behalf of the US, Israel uses the Palestinian people and the occupied Palestinian territories as testing grounds for developing American made ammunition, weapons and systems.
• The American assistant secretary of state Edward Walker attacks the Syrian President Bashar Al- Assad and demands that President Husnie Mubarak returns his Ambassador in Tel Aviv.
• The Israeli occupation authorities close Eretz industrial area and sends four thousand Palestinian workers to the oblivion of unemployment.
• Israel is angry with Norway because Norway supports the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation. Norway is not the only EU country to receive the wrath of Israel, Denmark, Ireland and France was subjected to the same Israeli treatment. In view of Israel's inhumane policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, it is reported that France, Norway, Ireland Holland and Denmark are considering taking economic measures against Israel. It is to be noted that Israel trade with the EU is approximately 50% of Israel's worldwide trade and reaches US $ 20 billion annually. The EU can exercise its economic pressure to make Israel abide by UN resolutions, return to the negotiations table, lift the Israeli continuing siege on the occupied Palestinian territories and withdraw from occupied Palestinian and Arab lands.
• An independent and firm European position is needed now, particularly as the United States began its isolationist policies in the world effectively abandoning the world community in pursuit of its so called own welfare. The European Union is duty bound to fill the void, not just that, the EU is required to try to bring sense to President Bush and the American administration in particular to the question of Gas Emissions and global warming in addition to Bush's Middle East peace policies and issues of Middle East oil and energy.
• The Palestinian leadership cancels its weekly cabinet meeting due to Israel's refusal to allow members of the Palestinian cabinet to travel from Gaza into Ramallah.

Thursday March 29, 2001

Main Headlines

• An American veto against protecting the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Sharon answers the Arab Summit in Amman with bombarding Gaza and Ramallah. Gaza was bombed from land, sea and air. The United States vitoes a UN Security Council resolution calling on protecting the Palestinian population under occupation, and Sharon gets the green light from Bush to bombard Palestinian cities. A Palestinian civilian woman and a man were killed by Bush sanctioned Sharon's bombing together with two military Force 17 men. Sixty-five others both civilian and military personnel were injured many seriously.
• Sharon's occupation army murdered a Palestinian child - nine-year old- and injured five others playing in the fields. The occupation army uses a different technique to lure Palestinian children to their death, booby-trapped toys. This is Sharon and this is his 'civilized army' an army of murders and killers.
• A Palestinian woman aged 70 died in Jaba village near Jenin yesterday. Jewish occupation soldiers fired poisonous gas into her home. Israeli soldiers went into the village in search of Palestinians accused of resisting the Israeli occupation.
• On A Jewish road block manned by Sharon's occupation soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territories, a 20 year old Palestinian young man was forcibly stripped, whipped and sent away naked. Sharon's occupation soldiers threatened to shoot the young man, putting their weapons into his mouth and burning cigarettes into his body. This is only one example of the type of humiliating treatments Palestinian youngsters and others receive on Jewish road blocks in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Reflecting a wide Palestinian public opinion point of view, Hanan Ashrawi says, the suicide bombs in Israel are counter productive and are detrimental to Palestinian just cause. Palestinian official sources and Palestinian public opinion reiterate that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is the mother of all violence. Leading Fatah leaders call on the Israeli public and the 'peace camp' in Israel to do more for the cause of peace.
• Sharon's bombing damaged President Arafat's home in Gaza . Sharon is coming very dangerously close to an eruption in the occupied Palestinian territories and the whole region.
• President Arafat will visit Damascus in mid April.
• Sharon's occupation army rips Palestinian land and destroys 50 dunums of fertile land in Dir el- Balah in Gaza.
• Jewish settlers in Hebron escalate their aggression, attack Palestinian civilians burn their houses , cars and businesses while the Israeli occupation army watching hardly doing anything to stop this bloodthirsty bunch of settlers. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are placed under strict curfew while settlers are rampaging through the city.
• Sharon's occupation army tightens the siege on the city of Qalqilya and declares it a close military zone.
• A Palestinian young man from Al- Bireh named Diya Al- Taweel commit suicide and takes the lives of two young Israelis perhaps of his age with him. A video screened on Israeli TV showed the boy swearing to take revenge against the Israeli occupation and Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people.
• The Bush administration defends Sharon's aggression against the Palestinian people. Peres reported to have coordinated with Collin Powel prior to starting the attack on Palestinian cities. During the attack on the cities, electricity was cut off, and the whole area went into darkness accompanied by horrific sounds of bombardments. Large numbers of Palestinians thronged the streets demonstrating against Sharon's bombardment and challenging his barbaric attacks on Palestinian cities.
• Amre Mousa won the collective support of all Arabs to assume the post of General Secretary of the Arab League.
• Fatah puts all its forces on heightened state of alert and vows to defend itself and resist the Israeli occupation to the end.
• Large parts of eastern Gaza are affected by treated sewage water originated in Israel and flooded Gaza two days ago. Large areas of green fields, farms, green houses and live stock were destroyed. The economic hardships facing Gaza and its Palestinian population are colossal and are liable to cause more fierce resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Wednesday March 28, 2001

Main Headlines

• Another Palestinian boy - eleven years old - was murdered yesterday in Hebron while at his home. 800mm bullets fired from an Israeli heavy machine gun hit the boy and killed him instantly. Israeli occupation soldiers and Jewish settlers attacked Palestinian civilians, their homes, their shops and work places. In scenes reminiscent of the Nazi era, Jewish armed settlers protected by Jewish soldiers wreaked havoc in certain parts of Hebron. Five hundred Jewish settlers, intruders in the Palestinian city, are turning the lives of more than 300 thousand Palestinians in Hebron and the surrounding area into a living hell. Instead of evacuating the settlers, Sharon's government ordered the evacuation of the Abu Sneneh neighbourhood, warning its residents that they will bear the consequences if they do not evacuate their homes. Israeli tanks and heavy machine guns bombarded the Abu Sneneh neighbourhood and many other areas in and around the city of Hebron, particularly near Al- Fawwar refugee camp injuring many Palestinian civilians. Fifty thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children, are under curfew in Hebron.
• The Israeli occupation troops also attacked areas in Arab East Jerusalem, Ramallah, Gaza, Rafah, Nablus, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Jenin and Tulkarm, injuring scores of Palestinian civilians and destroying more Palestinian property.
• The Foreign Minister of Denmark, Mogens Lykketoft, was reported as saying that Israel's establishment of new settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and expansion of existing settlements is one of the most serious barriers to peace in the Middle East. Lykketoft told the Berlingskse Tidende newspaper that Israel's new settlement activity is in breach of the Geneva conventions and will only lead to more violence. Lykketoft informed the newspaper that Denmark will propose to the EU that Israel's actions have consequences in its trade relations with the EU.
• In a speech in Amman yesterday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said: “The world has every right to criticize Israel for its occupation of Arab land and its use of excessively harsh force against the Palestinian people under occupation.” The UN Secretary General added: “Blockades and closures have paralyzed the Palestinian economy, isolated the West Bank and Gaza , and prevented the delivery of medicine, food and fuel. This collective punishment has cast a pall of anger and despair over the already tense occupied territories.”
• Thirty-seven Israelis were wounded yesterday after two bombs exploded in both the eastern and western parts of the city of Jerusalem. The first in Talbute in West Jerusalem and the second in the French Hill neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem. Israeli sources said both are the work of Palestinian suicide bombers.
• The United States of America vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for the dispatch of an international observer force to protect the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories. The new US administration last week welcomed with open arms the newly elected Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon. Over the years since he ordered the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the massacres his forces allowed to occur underneath their noses in Sabra and Chatilla against Palestinian refugees, Sharon was not a welcome guest in the US or in Europe. The United States supplies Israel with arms, financial and moral assistance and for this reason is considered by a majority in the Arab and Muslim world as a partner to the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, the Arab and Muslim nations.
• President Arafat and President Bashar Al- Assad met in Amman yesterday and are to meet again in Damascus soon to coordinate Palestinian and Syrian positions towards the peace process and the struggle against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab land.
• In a speech before the Arab Summit in Amman yesterday, President Bashar Al- Assad of Syria said that 'Israelis who voted Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel last month are the product of a society that is more racist than Nazis.'

Tuesday March 27, 2001

Main Headlines

• The Israeli occupation causes an environmental catastrophe in Gaza. Reports stated that more than four million cubic meter of treated sewage water burst out of a dam recently built near the Jewish settlement of Nahal Oz east of the Gaza strip and flooded large cultivated areas in the strip. The treated wastewater drowned homes, livestock and ruined large areas of fields, greenhouses and farms. Six Palestinians were hurt and the material losses are in tens of millions of US Dollars. The Palestinian Minister of Environment declared northern and eastern parts of the Gaza strip a disaster area, and held Israel fully responsible for this environmental catastrophe. While the Kibbutz residents were alarmed and informed the Israeli authorities failed to inform the Palestinian side, effectively causing maximum possible damage.
• A Palestinian boy age 15 was shot and killed yesterday by live bullets fired by Israeli occupation soldiers in Gaza. Hassan Mansur was walking home in an area the Israelis claim as have been declared a military zone close to a Palestinian neighborhood.
• Twenty more Palestinians were injured by Israeli tank bombardment and heavy machine gunfire in Hebron, Jericho and Gaza. Palestinian civilians were ordered to evacuate their homes in Abu Sneneh neighborhood in Hebron. Jewish settlers over the last few weeks have been going on the rampage in the city, attacking Palestinian civilians, and destroying Palestinian property, all this happening while Israeli occupation soldiers watching and protecting Jewish settlers. A ten-month Jewish girl was reported killed yesterday in the Jewish settlement in Hebron, Israeli sources say a Palestinian sniper fire hit the girl.
  The siege on the city of Hebron is being tightened more and fifty thousand Palestinians in area H2 under Israeli control and occupation are under strict curfew. Those Palestinians in H2 area have been under curfew for the most part of the last six months.
• Amnesty International supports the Palestinian people's right of return to their homes and demands that international observer force be dispatched to the occupied Palestinian territories. Secretary General of Amnesty International Pierre sane said in Jerusalem yesterday that: " The Palestinian refugees have the right to exercise their right of return to their homes. This is an international human right that can not be negotiated away by politicians."
• Palestinian security officials warn that Sharon's government will escalate its aggression against the Palestinian people and leadership.
• An Arab Summit will take place in Amman/ Jordan today. Palestinian expectations of the summit are low, and the possibility of its success is around 50%.
• President Arafat held important talks with several Arab leaders, and a Palestinian Syrian summit is expected today. A meeting between President Arafat and UN Secretary General Kofi Anan is also on the agenda. Palestinian and Arab demand for an international protection force to protect the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories will be top on the talks between President Arafat and Kofi Anan.
• Egyptian-Jordanian proposals are submitted for the resumption of Palestinian Israeli peace talks. The proposals said to have been submitted to the US administration, to the PLO and to the Israeli government.
• Intelligence reports emanating from Israel say that Sharon's government is preparing to strike at " Iranian missiles" in Lebanon. Sharon's government accused Hizbullah of acquiring missiles capable of reaching Middle Israel. Israeli airplanes, artillery and missiles over the years attacked Lebanon, killed and injured thousands of Lebanese civilians and destroyed infra structure, the last victims of which are electric power stations.
• President Husnie Mubarak of Egypt warns Israel against causing anarchy in the Middle East.
• Attempts by members of the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for the dispatching of international forces to protect the Palestinian people is being thwarted by the United States and Israel. The United States is threatening to use its vito power in order to thwart the resolution and EU member states recommend modified resolutions that would leave it for the UN Secretary General to determine a possible UN move to protect the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Sunday March 25, 2001

Main Headlines

• The Israeli occupation army uses stun grenades, tear gas bombs, steel coated rubber bullets and live ammunition - All American made- against Palestinian demonstrators men women and children in the occupied Palestinian territories. One Palestinian man was killed near Al- arroub Palestinian refugee camp, scores of others were wounded some seriously. Sharon, his right wing extremist government, and many American Jewish leaders call Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation violence. What can you as a reader call Israel's use of tanks, helicopter gunships, heavy machine gunfire, poisonous gases, stun grenades, dumdum bullets, siege, starvation, deprivation against a Palestinian civilian population? What would you call the murdering of Palestinian children by an Israeli occupation army using all kinds of American made weapons, an Israeli occupation army lead by Sharon a war criminal, killer of women, men and children in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon and killer of Egyptian war prisoners in the Sinai in 1956 and 1967?
• Israel and the United States are said to be developing new types of missiles. The US funds Israeli institutions in charge of developing weapons and tests newly developed weapons such as new types of poisonous gases against Palestinian demonstrators.
• Amnesty international accuses Israel of committing serious violations of Palestinian human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The suffering, torture and humiliation of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails increased after Sharon was elected to office in Israel.
• UN Security Council conducts intensive negotiations and consultation on sending UN international forces to protect the Palestinian people against Jewish barbaric occupation of Palestinian land. Israel and the United States are opposed to sending international protection forces. The US administration under Bush adopted Sharon's point of view and is backing Sharon's criminal practices against the Palestinian civilian population.
• EU leaders meeting in Stockholm yesterday demanded that Israel stop its siege imposed on the occupied Palestinian territories, and pay Palestinian funds held by Israel back to the PNA. EU leaders also called on donor nations to provide additional financial assistance to the Palestinian people. Over the last six months Israel caused material damages to the Palestinian economy and people to the value of US $3.5 billion.
• The Palestinian Legislative Council calls on the Arab Summit to be held in Amman/Jordan Tuesday to support the Palestinian people and leadership to confront Israeli threats and practices against unarmed Palestinian population under the Israeli occupation.
• In the pre summit deliberations, Arab Foreign ministers agree on Palestine and differ on Iraq. President Arafat is due to meet with President Bashar Al- Assad on the fringes of the Arab Summit in Amman Tuesday.
• Fasial Husieni, a prominent Palestinian leader in Arab East Jerusalem calls for an intensified Intifada (popular civilian uprising) to bring down the Sharon government.
• Egyptian civil society organizations began a set in hunger strike in solidarity with the Palestinian people, protesting Israel's measure to stop food and medical supplies from reaching Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps under siege.

Saturday March 24, 2001

Main Headlines

• The Israeli occupation army shot and killed a Palestinian policeman while on duty in Dir Al-Balah in Gaza. Tens of Palestinians were injured yesterday in clashes with the Israeli occupation soldiers throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. A Palestinian man 43-year-old was found murdered near the Jewish settlement of Halmish near Ramallah. Hospital sources said the man was subjected to severe torture and was beaten on his head. Stones with bloodstains were found close to his body. Ten days a go, a Palestinian boy aged ten was found murdered near the Jewish settlement of Navi Yacobe north of Arab East Jerusalem. The boy's father accused Jewish settlers of kidnapping and murdering his son.
• Israeli newspapers reported the Israeli military high command ratified plans to attack Palestinian "A " areas, and that Sharon agreed to the plans. Sharon is reported to have given instruction to his occupation army to conduct military operations against certain Palestinians.
• In a telephone conversation between President Arafat and US Secretary of State Collin Powel, the president calls on the US to pressure Israel to stop its policies of killing and siege imposed on the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The Israeli minister of infra structure, 'Avigdore Lieberman' a Russian immigrant who arrived in Israel in 1987 and a right wing extremist warns that water supplies to the Palestinian territories and Jordan might be cut. The Israeli occupation authority controls 80% of all water resources in the West Bank and Gaza, and siphon more than 650 million cubic meter of water of its water into Israel and to Jewish settlers illegally placed in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Israeli tanks bombarded Khan Younis inflicting four civilian injuries.
• The Red Cross Society accuses Israel of hindering the distribution of humanitarian medical and food supplies to the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Red Cross Society also expressed its worries with regard to the continuing violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Sharon denies that he called on the US to stop its financial and military assistance to Egypt. President Husnie Mubarak of Egypt earlier said that if Sharon did that, then Egypt will modify its position toward Sharon accordingly.
• Sharon plans to establish another Jewish settlement near Bethlehem, six thousand housing units are on the drawing board to be constructed in this new settlement inside the occupied Palestinian land.
• The PNA warns Israel against building any more settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories particularly Arab Jerusalem.
• Egypt's Foreign Minister Amre Mousa says, the Arab States will never accept Sharon's logic.
• The Palestinian permanent representative to the United Nations insists that a resolution will be placed before the UN Security Council calling on dispatching international troops to protect the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• US Secretary of State Collin Powel says, the US Administration is not avoiding talking to President Arafat and adds: Security cooperation between Israel and the PNA is necessary before resuming peace negotiations.
• President Arafat received in his office in Ramallah yesterday both the Foreign Minister of Switzerland and the Foreign Minister of Norway separately.
• The UN Security Council said to be 'studying' passing a resolution calling on Israel to lift its siege imposed on the occupied Palestinian territories.

Thursday March 22, 2001

Main Headlines

• A Palestinian boy who required medical treatment in Egypt died while waiting with his father on the border crossing with Egypt. The Israeli occupation soldiers on the crossing point refused to allow the child Abdul Fattah Jawher Al- Sebaghi four year old accompanied by his father from travelling to Egypt for medical treatment. Two weeks ago, doctors at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis recommended the child be transferred to an Israeli hospital for treatment. The Israeli authorities however denied him and his father the permission required to enter Israel. Fearing for the life of the child, doctors recommended that the child be transferred to a hospital in Egypt.
  The Israeli soldiers again prevented the boy and his father from travelling to Egypt, the child died while waiting on the border crossing. Israel again kills another child. God knows how many other Palestinian children are in the process of dying throughout the Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps placed under siege deprived from food, medicine, water, electricity, work, education etc. Where is humanity? Who is going to defend the lives of Palestinian children against a barbaric mass killer like Sharon and his murderous cabinet?
• A United Nation's special commission said yesterday that the Palestinian uprising did not mount to protracted violence by an armed group, and that the Israeli army used excessive and disproportionate force as a result of which hundreds of Palestinians had been shot and killed and thousands injured. The full report of the commission will be released officially next week. It is worth pointing that Israel boycotted the UN commission and did not cooperate with it all. The commission called for international protection force to be dispatched to the occupied Palestinian territories, called on those responsible of killing Palestinian civilians to be put on trial and to provide adequate compensation for the victims.
• The Mitchell Commission is in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, the commission pledged to preserve transparency and balance in its investigation into the circumstances of the outbreak of hostilities between the Palestinian people and Israel. In his discussion with Kofi Annan, the Israeli prime minister Eric Sharon opposed the idea behind the Mitchell fact finding committee and is opposed to the UN sending any observer protection force to the occupied Palestinian territories to protect Palestinian civilian population from Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers.
• Sharon suggests that the US does not invite Arafat to Washington, suggest the US stops giving assistance to Egypt and block Syria becoming a member of the UN Security Council. Sharon warned Kofi Annan not to send UN protection force to the occupied Palestinian territories, said that he will continue building Jewish settlements in occupied Arab Jerusalem, and refused paying Palestinian funds to the PNA.
• Sharon digs 3.5 -meter (12-ft) deep trenches around Palestinian towns, cities and villages, his tanks strewn on Palestinian roads linking various Palestinian areas and neighborhoods, tens of thousands of trees uprooted. Sharon's blockade imprisoned and hindered access for over three million Palestinians. But to Sharon, this is not a collective punishment. To the world in Washington, Sharon says: he wants to ease the suffering of Palestinians!
• Palestinian mothers are greeted on their day. President Arafat salute Palestinian mothers and values their steadfastness, compassion and courage. Over almost one hundred years of Palestinian struggle, Palestinian mothers were and still are on the forefront of Palestinian struggle for freedom and dignity.
• Israeli tanks bomb a Palestinian police position in Gaza killing a Palestinian policeman and injuring four others two seriously.
• In a change of tone, the Israeli President Moshe Katsave was reported as saying yesterday that Israel respects the Palestinian people and President Arafat, stressing that Israel does not want to destroy the Palestinian Authority.
• Secretary General of the Arab League Dr. Ismat Abdul Mageed said yesterday that President Arafat will visit Washington next month.
• The Israeli occupation prevents a Belgium airplane carrying ambulances and other medical equipment destined for the Palestinian people from landing at Gaza International Airport.
• A Palestinian NGO concerned with Palestinian water rights states the Palestinian population will face major water shortages this summer. Israel controls more than 80% of Palestinian water resources siphoned directly to Israel and to Jewish settlers. While Palestinian water consumption rate is around 100 cubic meter per person per annum, Jewish settlers' consumption rate reaches 1,420 cubic meter per person per annum. The water problem is worse in Gaza where not just the quantity of water is scarce, it is also water quality as seawater is affecting the underground water supplies.

Wednesday March 21, 2001

Main Headlines

• Two Palestinian children were killed by Israeli occupation forces overnight, a 13 year old boy from Sawyeh village near Nablus was shot in the stomach by a settler and another boy age 11 died of wounds to his head after being hit by Israeli gunfire in Dir Nizam in the west Bank. Many more Palestinians were injured by Israeli gunfire yesterday in Housan village, in Qalkilya, Rafah, and in areas and neighborhoods near Arab East Jerusalem.
• Israeli army field commanders are said to began taking precautions against possible war crimes indictments, particularly as a number of organizations have petitioned U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to set up a war crimes tribunal for Israel, similar to those set up to try suspects of war crimes against humanity in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.
• Shaul Mofaz, Chief of the Israeli General Staff said yesterday that Palestinian Authority security forces killed 40% of Israelis killed since the current Intifada broke out in late September. Mofaz however failed to mention that on direct orders from him, more than 450 Palestinian man, woman and child were killed by his occupation soldiers during the same period and tens of thousand others were injured. The Israeli political leadership and the Israeli army deliberately and purposely killed, maimed and injured thousands of Palestinians. The Israeli government sanctioned and is still sanctioning the killing of Palestinian civilians through allowing its occupation soldiers to deliberately shoot indiscriminately on Palestinian homes, civilians walking on the roads, in their cars and at home.
• Addressing a meeting with diplomats from 175 countries, Pope John Paul II warned that the situation in the Middle East could get spiral of control. The Pope said: " A continued injustice and contempt for international law that forbids holding on to territory by force".
• A Jewish mob attacked a Palestinian young man returning home from work in West Jerusalem yesterday.
  The man was hit on the head by a hard object, then was beaten all over his body by more than five Israelis until he lost conciseness.
  Other lynching attempts by Israeli hooligans took place recently, one in Netanya in which a Palestinian man was nearly beaten to death and another mob attacked a Palestinian man in a religious Jewish neighborhood in west Jerusalem.
  The Israeli police hardly take any measures against Jews attacking Palestinians. A Jew who attacked more than seven Palestinians in the same Jewish neighborhood last year was never apprehended. The killer of the 10-year old boy Mohammed Ismael Nassar found beaten to death near the Jewish settlement of Navi Yacove north of Arab Jerusalem was not found. Jews who kill Palestinians are rarely punished, Israeli courts in almost all cases gave very light sentences against Jews found guilty of killing Palestinians.
• The Security Council said to be debating a resolution to dispatch international protection and observation force to the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel is opposed totally to such a resolution. Sharon and Peres visited New York and lobbied against dispatching such force. The United States of America warned that it will vito such a resolution. The United States of America supplies Israel with its killing machine ranging from helicopter gunships, tanks, dumdum pullets, stun grenades and tear gas bombs etc. Not just that, the United States of America give Israel financial assistance to the value of US$ 3 billion and provide it with political, diplomatic and unethical immoral support. Many Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and countries throughout the world see the United States as partners to Israel in its war crimes against the Palestinian people and its continuing occupation of Palestinian land.
• Senior PLO official Abu Mazen says: The Bush Administration is continuing pro- Israeli policies. Abu Mazen added, no contacts with the American administration took place since Collin powel visited the Palestinian territories two weeks ago.
• The US administration will help Israel to acquire anti missile defenses. Israel is known to have ballistic missiles 'Jericho' capable of reaching Tehran, Baghdad and Moscow.
• In contradiction to international law, international legitimacy, and a long standing American policy since 1947, the American president renews his assertions to Sharon that he will transfer the American Embassy from Tel- Aviv to Jerusalem.
• Sharon's government bent on destabilizing the region, provoking the Palestinian people and the world community, contradicting international legitimacy resolutions, the fourth Geneva conventions and challenging the Arab and Muslim worlds, announced that it will begin the construction of around three thousand housing units for its Jewish settlers in Arab east Jerusalem and the surrounding area occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Yet Sharon speaks about 'Palestinian violence' and peace…what peace are you talking about Sharon?
• Israel's foreign minister Shimon Peres suggests four principles to change the situation with the Palestinian people as he put it: Stopping violence, return to the language of peace, return to the negotiating table and ease the Israeli sanctions and economic siege. If Peres is serious about his intentions to change the situation, an additional very important principle should be added. Freeze all settlement building and bypass road construction in the occupied Palestinian territories, all the occupied Palestinian territories first and foremost Arab east Jerusalem.
• Washington said to have criticized Israel's plans to construct more Jewish settlements in Arab Jerusalem.

Tuesday March 20, 2001

Main Headlines

• A demonstration representing Palestinian women organizations demonstrated yesterday in northern Arab Jerusalem demanding the lifting of the Israeli siege on Arab East Jerusalem and its neighboring Palestinian Arab neighborhoods. Back in 1992, Israel placed an Israeli occupation army checkpoint on the main road connecting Ramallah and Jerusalem near Al- Ram junction. On that checkpoint and others around Jerusalem Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza are prevented from entering their city for any purpose what so ever. Only Palestinians with permissions from the Israeli occupation authorities are allowed for a certain period of time into Arab East Jerusalem. The civilian women peaceful demonstration was confronted and attacked by the Israeli occupation army. Stunt and tear gas grenades were heralded at women demonstrators. Twenty-five of them were lightly injured, amongst those injured was PLC member Hanan Ashrawi.
• In Gaza, the Israeli occupation army opened fire using heavy machine guns and tanks in Rafah injuring four Palestinian youngsters including a sixteen year old girl on her way to school.
• Israel tightens its closure on the city of Bethlehem and the surrounding Palestinian areas. A Jewish settler from Efrat settlement built illegally on Palestinian land was killed yesterday. Israel says, Palestinian armed men fired at the vehicle of the settlers causing it to hit another vehicle coming from the opposite side killing the settler.
• Olmert's municipality of west Jerusalem allows the building of 2800 housing units for Jewish settlers in Arab East Jerusalem. Olmert a member of the Likud governing party in Israel has been waging an aggressive settlement campaign in and around Arab East Jerusalem, particularly after Sharon assumed office early this month. Last week Olmert approved the construction of another settlement block in Abu Dis, and gave the go ahead to confiscate large areas of Palestinian land in order to build a road linking West Jerusalem to Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem.
• PLO General secretary Mahmoud Abbas says; unofficial contacts are taking place between the PNA and the Israeli government. Discussion on various issues is being conducted.
• Cabinet Secretary Ahmad Abdul Rahman says: Ratification of plans to build Jewish housing units on Abu Ghneim in Arab East Jerusalem will bury the peace process for good.
• US Secretary of State Collin Powel says the US is committed to the principle of land for peace and calls on both Israel and the Palestinians to adopt political, economic and security arrangements. Powell adopted Sharon's position calling for an end to violence before resuming talks, and Sharon demands a multi stage phased agreements based on agreement of none belligerency.
• The Israeli Prime Minister Sharon denies a plan to evacuate three Jewish settlements in Gaza.
• The Palestinian Minister of Agriculture discusses with his Israeli opposite number means to contain Foot and Mouth disease.
• An Israeli security man was found dead near the Lebanese borders and 60 rifles were missing from him. Two Israeli soldiers were reported injured in the northern Jordan valley.
• Confrontations between Palestinian citizens and the Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers are continuing. The Palestinian people demonstrating against the Israeli occupation, the illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land and the siege imposed by Israel on the occupied Palestinian towns, cities and villages.
• President Bush hopes that Israel will east the economic pressure on the Palestinians.
• Israel informed the US administration of its refusal to hand over Palestinian funds to the PNA.
• President Arafat held talks yesterday with King Abdullah of Jordan and President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen.
• Responding to Sharon's assertions that he will not negotiate with Syria now, President Bashar Al- Assad revealed that Sharon sent him a secret envoy suggesting holding secret talks with Syria immediately after Sharon was elected. The Syrian response to Sharon was that Syria will only negotiate in the open and only after the Palestinian problem and Arab Jerusalem is solved to the satisfaction of the Palestinian and Arab peoples.
• The Israeli occupation prevents 15 ambulances and eight trucks loaded with food supplies from entering into the Palestinian territories. The Saudi government donated the ambulances to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. The ambulances have been standing at the Rafah point of entry since mid February. The trucks loaded with food supplies were prevented from entry and are now waiting for clearance from the Israeli occupation to enter near Rafah.

Monday March 19, 2001

Main Headlines

• Israeli occupation troops stationed around Palestinian towns cities and villages bombard Palestinian residential areas. Israeli occupation forces on orders from area, regional and Israeli high commands bomb Palestinian residential areas indiscriminately causing death to Palestinian civilians mainly women and children and terrorizing communities. The Israeli occupation army is committing a double crime at the same time, occupying the land of others illegally and committing the crimes of murder against a civilian population. All Israeli army officers involved in the killing of Palestinian women and children- all those crimes are documented- in imposing a siege on Palestinian towns and villages, causing starvation and death to people while on checkpoints must be charged as war criminals.
• The Israeli occupation forces tighten the siege on Rafah and Khan Younis in Gaza and prevent once again the entry of fuel to the city and oxygen to hospitals.
• Sharon tries to win Washington's support for his plans to prolong the suffering of the Palestinian people and to build more Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Israel enforces its electronic fence on its southern border with Gaza, and claims that Nahal Oz an Israeli settlement inside the green line was hit by three mortar shells, the first since 1967. Palestinian official sources denied these Israeli allegations stating that no such weapons are available to Palestinian police forces.
• Egypt's Foreign Minister Amre Mousa says, providing international protection for the Palestinian people is a very urgent matter.
• PLC head Ahmad Qurai' calls on Washington to pressure Israel to implement UN Security Council resolutions. Dr. Nabil Shaath- Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation- began a diplomatic tour in which he will visit many European countries to garner support for Palestinian efforts to deploy international forces in the occupied Palestinian territories to protect Palestinian civilians.
• The Israeli president Moshe Katsave demands from the Israeli minister of police to allow extremists Jews to enter the grounds of Al- Aqsa Mosque- Al- Haram Al Shareef.
• The Israeli occupation authorities did not release the body of the child Mohammed Ismael Nassar, a 10 year old Palestinian boy found beaten to death near a Jewish settlement north east of Arab Jerusalem. Mohammed's parents are sure that Jewish settlers are responsible for murdering their son. The boy was beaten and his head crushed with a stone.
• Sharon carries with him to Washington a bundle of incitement against the PNA and the Palestinian people. Israeli officials are continuing their efforts to abort any attempt to send international protection and observer force to the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel refuses international force so that it can continue its oppressive and barbaric measures against the Palestinian people and continue usurping Palestinian land. Simply Israel does not want the international community to see its atrocities and slow genocide Israel practicing in the occupied Palestinian territories. Further more, Sharon wants and seeks Washington's green light to go ahead and continue with his plans. In addition to American made guns and ammunitions used by Israel to kill Palestinian women and children, Sharon wants and seeks an active American cover so that he and his generals are not called to answer charges of committing war crimes at the Hague World Criminal Court.
• President Arafat met various Arab leaders and will have a summit meeting today in Amman with king Abdullah of Jordan.
• Moshe Arense, a member of the Israeli Knesset and a close advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon says, the US will not be able to form a coalition against Iraq as it did in 1990.
• Palestinian Minister of Agriculture Hikmat Zied calls on the world community to pressure Israel to lift its siege on the occupied Palestinian territories to enable the PNA deal with possible Foot and Mouth disease cases found in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Sunday March 18, 2001

Main Headlines

• Palestinians demonstrate to break the Israeli imposed siege on Ramallah, Nablus and other Palestinian areas. Israel created 91 army posts on roads connecting Palestinian cities towns and villages, and divided the Palestinian territories into 64 isolated areas -camps-. If the Israeli occupation siege continues on the occupied Palestinian territories, the camps will turn into concentration camps similar to those the Nazis created for the Jews with one difference, the Palestinians were not driven by trains to concentration camps, Jewish soldiers came and encircled Palestinian areas turning them into such camps.
• Jewish settlers torture a Palestinian boy to death. Mohammad Ismael Nasar, a Palestinian boy age 10 was found near a Jewish settlements north east of Jerusalem, the boy was tortured to death, his head was hit by hard objects probably stones. The boy's father said his son was playing football at a nearby playground. The father accuses Jewish settlers of kidnapping the boy, torturing him and dumping his body in an uninhabited area close to the settlement. Immediately after the body of the Palestinian boy was found, and without bothering to investigate his death, the Israeli police immediately denied Jewish settlers involvement in the torture and murder of the Palestinian boy.
• Two more young boys were killed by Israeli occupation troops in Gaza. One boy was shot near Al- Mintar crossing point and the other in Rafah.
• Palestinian Minister of agriculture says, foot and moth disease appears to be contained and under control. More suspected animals are being tested. Palestinian veterinary teams are not allowed to travel freely on the roads to reach the various locations in the occupied Palestinian territories to deal effectively with the crises. On a different note, Israel promised to supply around 150,000 vaccines to the PNA today. Israel is withholding funding amounting to hundreds of million of US dollars belonging to the PNA, making it very difficult if not impossible to mobilize the necessary measures to fight against this and other possible diseases.
• The Gulf Cooperation Council calls for dispatching an immediate protection force to the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Sharon threatens the PNA with tightening the closure further. His Foreign Minister Peres leads Sharon's incitement campaign against the Palestinian people and leadership.
• Israeli gunboats patrolling the sea of Gaza shoot at Palestinian fishing boats and arrest five fishermen.
• President Arafat to meet President Bashar Assad in Damascus very soon. President Arafat met yesterday with President Mubarak and discussed with him the ongoing preparation for the coming Arab summit to be held in Amman on March 27.
• The United States affirms Lebanon's rights to use its water. And rejects Israeli threats against Lebanon. Israel protested Lebanon's use of its Hasbani River to Provide drinking and irrigation water to nearby Lebanese villages. Israel reminded Lebanon that it went to war in 1967 to make sure that water originating in Arab countries reaches Israel and that it won't tolerate Lebanon's attempt to use water from Lebanese rivers!
• Palestinian Minister of Finance says Palestinian losses due to Israeli siege and closure over the occupied Palestinian territories reached 3250 million US dollars.
• Jordanian efforts are taking place to narrow differences between Iraq and Kuwait.
• Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Nabil Shaath says, Collin Powel apologized to Amre Musa for his latest statements on Jerusalem.
• Israel said to be allowing assistance to come through after it allowed the opening of Allenby Bridge before Palestinians wishing to travel to Jordan and beyond. The difficulties however is that the Palestinians are unable to reach the 'opened ' bridge as roads are blocked by Israeli occupation soldiers enforcing a siege on Palestinian territories.

Saturday March 17, 2001

Main Headlines

• Another Palestinian man was killed and tens of others injured in confrontations with Israeli occupation forces besieging the Palestinian occupied territories. Jewish settlers attacked a Palestinian car with stones near Nablus causing serious injuries to seven passengers. Armed Jewish settlers accompanied by Israeli occupation soldiers attacked Palestinian neighborhoods in Al- Bireh near Ramallah.
  Homes were damaged and Palestinian families were terrorized. A Jewish soldier threw a stunt grenade/ a tear gas bomb into a children school in Hebron injuring and causing burns and suffocation to seven Palestinian children.
• The United States Vito a UN Security Council resolution to send a UN protection force to the occupied Palestinian territories. Fourteen members voted in favor, the United States voted against.
• An American organization confirmed that Israeli occupation troops used depleted uranium munitions against Palestinian targets.
• Olmert municipality ratifies plans for the construction of another 2800 housing units for Jewish settlers in Arab East Jerusalem. Jewish settlers take another Palestinian home in Arab East Jerusalem, and Sharon's government decides to go ahead with constructing a road around Arab East Jerusalem confiscating in the process large areas of land belonging to the Palestinian people in Jerusalem. The planned road is designed to suffocate further Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem and allow easy access for Jewish settlers to reach settlements surrounding the Arab city.
• The Human Right's Committee in Geneva meets today to discuss Mary Robinson's report on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Human Right's High Commissioner Robinson toured the occupied Palestinian territories last November and witnessed first hand Israel's violations of Palestinian basic human rights.
• President Arafat toured North African Arab countries and will brief President Mubarak of Egypt today on the latest Israeli measures against the Palestinian people.
• Head of the PLC denies any secret negotiations between the PNA and Sharon's government.
• Israeli intelligence calls on Sharon's government to allow Jews to visit the Holy Mosque- Al- Haram Al- Shareef in Arab East Jerusalem.
• Israeli occupation forces continue arresting Palestinian young men and women in Jerusalem and throughout the occupied Palestinian territories and accuse them of 'plotting' to resist the Israeli occupation.

Thursday March 15, 2001

Main Headlines

• Another young Palestinian young man was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza. A 48 year old Palestinian woman died on her way to hospital as when the vehicle she was travelling in was stopped at Al- Jalameh Israeli checkpoint on the gates of the Palestinian town of Jenin. The not so surprising thing in this continuing saga is: a spokesman for the Israeli occupation army denies such a thing took place, perhaps, Amira Nasr Nassar is merely a ghost and not a woman deserves its basic human rights. The problem also is that many such cases occur news of which do not reach the public domain. The question that should be asked is, how on earth can an ambulance carrying a heart patient pass through the Israeli checkpoint when hundreds of cars are waiting in the queue. The answer is simple, vehicles carrying patients and sick people can not cross, pregnant women can not reach hospitals. The Israeli army spokesman should take a little breath and think before he denies the facts, the atrocities of his army against the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Sharon and people surrounding him are misleading the Israeli public, he is portraying the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence as a struggle for food and work opportunity in Israel. Sharon is deluding himself and his people, Israeli journalists are culpable in perpetuating this delusion.
  The Palestinian people are determined to get red of this barbaric Israeli occupation, the Palestinian people are determined to be free, and to live in peace and dignity on their land. Sharon and his policies are not just dangerous but they are criminal, they are criminal because a whole population is suffering, children and young men being killed, famine and starvation will not be long before they become a fact, the West Bank Arab Jerusalem and Gaza will soon resemble Iraqi cities that have been under American sponsored sanctions for ten years now.
  Sharon is dangerous because he insist on depriving the Palestinian people their rights for self determination and freedom, because he is threatening Lebanon if it uses it water resources in the Hasbani river, because member of his government threatened to bomb Beirut, the Aswan Dam in Egypt and Tehran.
  Sharon is dangerous because he reminds the Palestinian and Arab peoples of his criminal past, because he represent the ugly face of occupation, hatred and long term danger for the whole of the Middle East including American and European interests in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
  President Bush should read this dangerous man 's message very carefully when Sharon visits him in the White House next week. In addition to preserving American and West European interests in the Arab and Muslim worlds, President Bush should be careful not to associate himself with a war criminal that will surely end being investigated and condemned by the world criminal court in the Hague. Sharon is the butcher of Qibya, the murderer of Sabra and Chatilla, and currently planning to repeat his past in the West Bank and Gaza.
• Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Arab members of the Israeli Knesset demonstrate near Kalandia against Sharon's siege on Ramallah. Bir ziet University where 6000 thousand students and staff study and work was closed this week because Israeli occupation soldiers dug the main road, destroyed large sections of it and placed barriers on it to prevent students and citizens from reaching the University and another 33 villages around Ramallah.
• The Red Cross distributes tents, blankets and food to Palestinians made destitute after Israeli occupation bulldozers destroyed their homes and work places in Gaza.
• The Arab League demands the UN Security Council send protection observer force to the occupied Palestinian territories.
• President Arafat began a tour of Arab countries. Nabil Shaath, Palestinian Minister of international Cooperation warns the Arab Summit of loosing its credibility if it dos not rise above its internal problems and provide the necessary support to the Palestinian Intifada and people. Critical voices in the Palestinian street have been heard recently criticizing Arab regimes and leaders for not doing enough to help the Palestinian people.
• People around the world particularly in Europe, Australia, and the US are more tuned to the suffering of the Palestinian people and are more aware of Israeli atrocities perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Individuals, groups and human rights organizations are asked to work harder to expose the savage Israeli occupation, and the need of the Palestinian people to attain their freedom and independent state next to the state of Israel. Israel must be made to withdraw from all occupied Palestinian and Arab territories. The Israeli occupation and hegemony on the Palestinian people must be terminated if peace, security and prosperity to prevail in the region. Israelis will have security by granting freedom to the Palestinian people and not by the strangulation and killing perpetrated by Sharon and his occupation army.
• Israel threatens Lebanon because it is trying to use some of Lebanon's Hasbani water for the use of a Lebanese village in the south of the country. UN observers in the area said, Lebanon is not diverting the small river of Hasbani, it is merely constructing a pump and pipes to take some water in to a village whose people have returned recently after the Israeli occupation evacuated southern Lebanon.
• Egypt's Attorney General demands maximum sentence for an Egyptian national recruited for spying the Israeli intelligence service the Mossad.
• According to the Guardian newspaper, France is considering freezing a major agreement with Israel if the latter does not stop its violations of Palestinian human rights and lift the siege imposed on the occupied Palestinian territories. Belgium and other European countries are taking more pro Palestinian human rights position and are demanding that Israel stops its sanctions and measures against the Palestinian people.
• In return, Sharon and his government refused the EU's request to release Palestinian funds amounting to US $ 600 million. Sharon went further and divided the occupied Palestinian territories into 64 surrounded pieces, closed from each other and from the world. Sharon also is accusing President Arafat of being a danger to stability in the region and is planning on waging a campaign to de-legitimize the PNA in preparation to dismantling it. One important indication of Sharon's coming catastrophic policies could be found in Uri Dan's op-ed in the Jerusalem Post today, when he referred to the West Bank as 'western Eretz Israel', meaning that there is an eastern Eretz Israel i.e. Jordan. Uri Dan is a close confidant of Sharon, and was Sharon spokesman during the Lebanon war in the 80's. Sharon said to have been the only Israeli journalist who predicted Sharon will become Prime Minister of Israel. His predictions on the East of the Jordan as Eretz Israel should be taken seriously, least of all by the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan.

Wednesday March 14 2001

Main Headlines

• Israel's assertions that it has lifted or eased the siege on the occupied Palestinian territories is a lie. The siege is still in force. An additional checkpoint was added on a major road linking the northern and southern parts of the West Bank. Israel justifies its siege on Ramallah with the existence of an armed cell in the city. This lie was improvised by the Sharon government and security service after news reports and live scenes were shown throughout the world exposing the brutality and barbaric practices exercised by Israel against the Palestinian population. While the world was watching the blockade imposed on the Bir Ziet Ramallah road, Ra'nan Gissen, a spokesman for Sharon was grilled on the BBC for his denials of Israeli collective punishment against the Palestinian population under occupation.
• The siege causes the death of a 39 year old Palestinian who was prevented from reaching hospital for treatment from a heart attack. Palestinian Minister of Information described the Israeli repeated assertions on easing the closure as nothing but an attempt to dupe the world community and governments and to stem the tide of condemnation and criticism of Sharon's barbaric policies of collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
• PLC head Ahmad Qurai says: Israel is not telling the truth to its people and is bent on instilling hatred and vengeance in the region.
• The French Foreign Minister sent a letter to Peres stating France's rejection of the Israeli measures against the Palestinian people under occupation. An EU delegation including EU Commissioner Chris Patten, Sweden Foreign Minister current head of the EU Presidency Anna Lindh and EU's special peace envoy to the region Miguel Moratinos reported to have informed the Israeli government that there are frustrations abroad critical of the " economic " steps Israel has taken against the Palestinian people, and called on Israel to halt such measures in addition to demanding that Israel release funds belonging to the PNA.
• Some Israeli and Jewish writers and 'intellectuals' encourage Sharon to take harsher measures against the Palestinian people and to squeeze the PNA as hard as it can, the higher the price Daniel Pipes (director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum) says, the sooner they are likely to produce results. Pipes cited ancient armies cut supply routes, and medieval cities were starved to submission. Sharon appears to be heeding Pipes advice. If you do not believe it, watch the Israeli army on the gates of each and every Palestinian city, town and village.
• Another Israeli 'peace loving person', who served as deputy director of Communication and Policy Planning under Netanyahu calls on Jews all over the world to assist Jewish settlers in 'Judea, Samaria' i.e. the West Bank and Gaza to purchase night vision equipment, binoculars, bulletproof vehicles and pagers. After all, the Israeli army is doing what it can, but can not be everywhere at all times. Jewish settlers must be able to terrorize the Palestinian community more and need such equipment to facilitate their work.
• Israeli heavy machine guns targeted Palestinian residential areas in Rafah causing much damage to homes and a mosque.
• Israeli army bulldozers destroyed two Palestinian homes in Biet Ommar near Hebron, destroyed plantations and made two families homeless.
• The Israeli Defense minister warns Lebanon not to use its water resources in the Haspani river.
• Arab and non-allied countries call for an urgent session for the UN Security Council in order to adopt a UN Security Council resolution to send international forces to protect the Palestinian people under occupation.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell says: His statement on Jerusalem as capital of Israel was not intended and is a mistake. Powell promised Arab American leaders that the US will examine Israel's use of American made weapons against the Palestinian people.

Monday March 12 2001

Main Headlines

• The Israeli occupation army tightened its siege and blockade on Ramallah, cutting it off its surrounding villages and Arab Jerusalem. The Israeli occupation army is preventing Palestinian vehicles from using the roads linking the city and the surrounding towns and villages. The Israeli occupation dug deep trenches, blocked access roads with large concrete blocks, deployed tanks and armored vehicles with heavy machine guns.
  In many areas, Palestinians can only walk, they can not carry any thing on them, not even a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk. A boy can not carry his school bag. Similar closures are being used against all Palestinian cities affecting hundreds of villages, towns and refugee camps.
• In addition to the policy of siege and starvation, Sharon added more internationally forbidden weapons to his arsenal being used against the Palestinian people, some type of cluster bombs fired from a rifle is the latest weapon. A Palestinian man walking on his land was killed yesterday by dart-like projectiles -, an anti -personnel ammunition used by Israel previously in Lebanon. Ziad Ayyad was admitted to Shifa hospital in Gaza with one of the projectiles in his left eye, two pointing in opposite directions in his pelvis and one in his left lung as was shown by the x-ray.
  A spokesman for the Israeli occupation army refused to confirm the Israeli soldiers used this type of weapons against the Palestinian population saying: 'the Israeli army uses the best suited ammunition in the area'.
• One other technique used by the Israeli occupation army was the planting of large bombs in buildings under construction in the Palestinian areas. Bombs planted by the Israeli occupation army were discovered and dismantled before detonation yesterday in Al- Bireh/ Ramallah.
• The Israeli occupation army destroys a cement factory in Gaza in addition to 200 donums of fertile land in Rafah. According to UN and other reports, Israel uprooted more than 75,000 olive and other fruit trees in the last five months.
• The Israeli occupation army arrest more and more Palestinian youngsters on daily basis. The Palestinian people are concerned that these youngsters are being treated badly by the Israeli occupation authorities and warn Israel against torturing Palestinian youngsters and others in Israeli jails.
• Peres plays a second fiddle to Sharon and market his policies. The Israeli government in parallel with its escalated atrocities against the Palestinian civilians under occupation began an incitement campaign to justify its barbaric measures against the Palestinian population.
• The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Holy Land Michele Sabah denies Israeli reports of an apology for the treatment he received at an Israeli checkpoint near Ramallah. The Patriarch was treated badly and prevented from entering Ain arik to conduct a mass in the village. Patriarch Sabbah said, any Israeli army apology should be made to the Palestinian people.
• Worse than a bull in a China shop, Sharon is a bull filled with dynamite that will raise the shop to the ground. Peres is facilitating Sharon's destructive mission. Instead of trying to reduce the days of Sharon's rejectionest, outdated government, Peres is playing a second fiddle to Sharon. Soon, Peres will discover again that Sharon is more devious than he is, Sharon did not consult Peres when he decided to starve those Palestinian children who were not killed by Barak's occupation army. Did Sharon consult Peres when he began using cluster bombs against Palestinian civilians? did Sharon consult Peres when he ordered his demolition troops to plant bombs in Palestinian buildings under construction?. We do not know the answer to those questions, what we do know is that Peres made the mistake of his life by joining the war criminal Sharon. The 'peace camp' in Israel if there is one and the labor party can not and should not stay quiet watching the bull destroying the shop. This old bull Sharon must be removed and sent to the dustbin of history where he belongs.

Sunday March 11 2001

Main Headlines

• Israeli occupation soldiers kill a 27 year old Palestinian man in Gaza.
• Addresing the sixth plenary session of the Palestine National Council, President Arafat says: Our hearts are open and our hands are extended to achieve peace of the brave. President Arafat called on Israel to stop its military escalation, and lift its siege imposed on Palestinian cities towns and villages.
• UN reports says: The israeli closure on the occupied palestinian territories caused poverty for two million Palestinians.
• Jewish settlers in Hebron attack Palestinian civilians and Journalasits , torch a palestinian home in Biet Safafa and a farm.
• Unable to receive its students, teaching stuff and workers, Bir Ziet University is closed. Bir Ziet Univeristy President Dr. Hanna Nasser appeals to the world community, the United Nations, UNISCO and all concerned to pressure Israel to allow palestinian students reach the university and to open the roads and restore them to their previous state.
• Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation criticises the Arab's weak stand and weak support to the Palestinian people. Minister of Information and Culture Abed Raboo informs Arab information ministers of the escalated Israeli violance against the palestinian people and land.
• Special advisor to President Arafat says: rumors on a meeting between President Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon are not true.
• PECDAR, the Palestinian Organisation incharge of economic development in the Palestinian territories issues a statement detailing the destruction of roads perpetrated by the israeli occupation authorities , the number and description of these roads, the number and description of Israeli checkpoints throughout the occupied palestinian territories.
• A peaceful demonstration will be held tomorrow Monday March 12 at 10.00 a.m near Best Eastern hotel in Ramallah to protest the closure of the road connecting Ramllah and 33 Palestinian villages north and west of the city, including Bir Ziet where the University is located. The demonstrators will proceed towards the blocked road and will protest the closure vigorously.

Saturday March 10 2001

Main Headlines

• Sharon's plan:
  • Isolate Palestinian communities and conduct military operations in areas under Palestinian total control area 'A'.
  • Induce quiet areas with work opportunities inside Israel
  • Direct pressures on the Palestinian leaders and leadership
  • Entertain the possibility of the collapse of the PNA and conduct negotiations with 'other' Palestinian representatives.
• Sharon's occupation army turned the West Bank into 40 isolated islands. The Israeli occupation army destroys roads and chokes Palestinian towns, villages and cities. Meanwhile Peres says: The new Israeli government will take quick measures to ease economic hardship on the Palestinian people. Very strange! Or is it?
• Protesting the siege imposed on Bir Ziet University, the University suspends its work today.
• The Israeli occupation forces prevent Patriarch Sabbah from entering the village of Ain arik 3 Km south of Ramallah.
• Angry Arab and Muslim reactions to Collin Powel's remarks on Jerusalem. The US State Department back track and said Powell spoke off the top of his head. And that there is no change in US policy on Jerusalem.
• The Palestinian leadership calls on the Israeli government to stop its collective punishment and its siege on the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The Israeli occupation army uses its heavy machine guns and tank fire against Palestinian residential areas in Nablus, Rafah, al- Khader and Hebron. A Palestinian boy was seen on TV screens shot in the back by Israeli soldiers. Six Palestinians mainly boys and young men are seriously injured.
• Olmert municipality Okays more Jewish settlements in Abu Dis in Arab East Jerusalem. Jewish settlers takeover a house in the old city of Jerusalem and prevent its owner - a Palestinian old woman- from returning to it after she left hospital.
• The new Israeli minister of defense says: we are not interested in an all out confrontation with the Palestinian people. Meanwhile, the Israeli Chief of Staff prepares the Israeli army for an all out war in the summer.
• Sharon said to have changed his mind and agreed to meet President Arafat soon. Special advisor to President Arafat Nabil abu Rdaineh says: We are interested in creating an atmosphere conducive to a resumption of peace talks with Israel.
• President Arafat will address the Palestinian Legislative Council meeting in Gaza today.

Saturday March 3 2001

Main Headlines

• Four more Palestinian martyrs including two little boys age 9 and 11. Obbay Darraj a nine year old boy was killed by Israeli bullets in his home not very far from his father decorating the house for the Muslim festival of Eid Al- Adha. The child Mohammed Hellis 11 died of his wounds in Gaza hospital. Mustafa Ramlawi was hit in the face by a bullet of a heavy machine gun fired by an Israeli tank while walking home in Gaza. Israel first accused Ramlawi of attempting to plant a bomb, then changed its mind, as Israeli occupation troops found no bombs next to his body, they found some sweets in his pockets and a bag full of clothes. Abdul Karim abu assabeh, a 23-year young man was hit and killed by an Israeli bullet in the abdomen in Kalandia north of Jerusalem. Occupation gunfire and poisonous gas injured seventy-five Palestinians.
• President Arafat says: The Israeli bullets killing Palestinian children undressed the Israelis and showed their naked aggression against our people. President Arafat reiterated his statement saying Israeli occupation forces uses poisonous gases against the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The American Ambassador to Israel warns of a big explosion in Gaza and the West Bank. Such an explosion will lead to a catastrophic regional war to include Israel Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
• Israeli senior military officers warn that Israel will invade areas under Palestinian full control and reoccupy them again. In other words, instead of just standing outside entrances to Palestinian cities and towns, they will go inside them.
• Political analysts say, occupying Palestinian cities again will deepen the quagmire the Israeli occupation troops find themselves in now.
• Palestinian Minister of Communication warns Israel of a Palestinian return to arms struggle.
• Israel is said to be on high alert expecting armed attacks.
• Peres threatens that he will resign from the Israeli government if Sharon abandoned Oslo.
• The Israeli Labor party elects its members for the Sharon government.

Thursday March 1 2001

Main Headlines

• Israeli gunners hit a children nursery, a mosque, residential areas and positions for Palestinian police force. More than twenty Palestinian civilians were injured some seriously including a four-year-old girl in a nursery in khan Younis.
• The Israeli occupation forces tighten their siege on the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The Palestinian National Authority sent an urgent appeal to the Arab Nation to come to the assistance of the Palestinian people.
• A bullet hit a Palestinian girl while with her father driving in Arab East Jerusalem
• President Arafat and President Mubarak meet in Egypt. On the agenda was US Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to the Middle East and preparations for the Arab Summit to be held on March 27 in Amman Jordan.
• PLC speaker Ahmad Qurai calls on the International Labor Organization to stand by Palestinian laborers and to pressure Israel to pay them wages, salaries and other money owed to them.
• The Foreign Minister of France says: Do not under estimate the frustration held by the Palestinian people, adding the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories is worrisome.