NOVEMBER 2001

Thursday November 29, 2001

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Wednesday November 28, 2001

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Tuesday November 27, 2001

Main Headline

Monday November 26, 2001

Main Headline

• Five Palestinian children were injured this morning by Israeli tank fire targeting Palestinian homes in Khan Younis. An 18 month baby Hamto Fayek was one of those children hit by shrapnel's fired by Israeli tanks into the city. Israeli occupation troops fire indiscriminately into Palestinian residential areas causing death, injury and much destruction to Palestinian life. Palestinian children are subjected to Israel's terror day in day out. Yesterday morning , Israeli Apache helicopter gunships fired missiles into Khan Younis and Rafah destroying Palestinian buildings and infra structure. Israeli tanks and bulldozers storm almost every day into Palestinian cities and refugee camps destroying homes, fertile land and uprooting trees. This morning Israeli tanks and bulldozers stormed into Rafah and destroyed three Palestinians houses.
• This is the doctrine of Sharon, inflicting heavy losses on Palestinians who dare to resist the Israeli occupation and his Jewish settlement policies inside the occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli army spokesmen these days do not even deny their indiscriminate shelling of Palestinian civilians and residential areas. On the contrary, this is announced in Arabic every morning on Israel's Radio for every one to hear and see. Sharon thinks he can instill fear in Palestinian hearts. He was proven wrong, the more terrorism Sharon uses against the Palestinian people, the more resistance he and his army and government will face, the Israeli occupation is on its way out, Sharon will be defeated and he will end up worth big fat zero in the dust bin of history.
• A Palestinian school boy was shot to death by Israeli gunfire yesterday in Bethlehem. The boy from Al- Dhaisheh refugee camp was one of a number of Palestinian school children demonstrating against the Israeli occupation and the closure imposed by the Israeli occupation army on Bethlehem, and other Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps. Kifah Obiad age 13 was hit by an Israeli bullet in the chest. Minutes later he was announced dead. Other Palestinian children were injured by rubber bullets and poisonous gas fired at the demonstrations by sadist occupation soldiers.
• Large number of Israeli occupation soldiers and police stormed into Al- Issaweyyah village north east Arab Jerusalem, arrested no less than 10 Palestinians, and confiscated 20 vehicles commercial and private belonging to the people of the village. The Israeli occupation army closed all roads into and outside the village and prevented school children from going to schools and workers from going to their workplaces. Al- Issaweyyh village is under Israeli security control and is not part of area A.
• Israeli navy arrested Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza sea.
• President Arafat held talks yesterday in Cairo with President Mubarak and later on had talks with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
• The American peace team will arrive in the region today and is scheduled to meet president Arafat in Ramllah Tuesday.

Sunday November 25, 2001

Main Headline

• A general strike in the occupied Palestinian territory and repeated calls by tens of thousands of Palestinians for revenge. The Palestinian leadership condemns Israel's military escalation against the Palestinian people and accuses the Sharon government of deliberately trying to torpedo the American mission to bolster cease-fire and implement the Tenet and Mitchell plans before the American peace team arrives in the region.
• Israel confesses its occupation soldiers planted the bomb that killed five Palestinian children last Thursday.
• Israeli senior army officers are reported to have said that assassinating Palestinians will not produce results that will help Israel. Washington said it is opposed to target killing of Palestinians. France condemned Israel's targeted killing of Palestinians and described Israel's acts as 'irresponsible'.
• Egypt and Qatar describe the Israeli continuing aggression on the Palestinian people as an Israeli challenge to the United States and its efforts to bring peace to the region.
• Israeli tanks bombed Palestinian residential areas in Rafah, Khan younis and Biet Lahia in Gaza, causing severe damage to Palestinian homes. At least 30 Palestinian civilians were injured . Israeli occupation troops fired tear gas and stun grenades into a Palestinian school near Nablus , school children were taken to hospitals suffering from eye burns and breathing difficulties.
• The Israeli siege on Palestinian cities, towns and villages is still in place, causing immense difficulties and hardships to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Palestinian charity organizations are facing immense financial and logistic difficulties in its efforts to cater for an increasing numbers of Palestinian families who lost their sources of income and lost their bread winners. Thousands of Palestinians were either killed, injured or maimed by Israeli gunfire. Almost 50% of those Palestinians capable of work have regular jobs now, the unemployed are ranging from 40- 60 %. This is due to the Israeli strangulation of the Palestinian society and economy.
• The Palestinian ministry of supplies distribute food parcels to poor families in the various Palestinian communities in the West bank including Jerusalem and Gaza.
• The Palestinian city of Bethlehem prepares for Xmas. The celebrations in the city of Bethlehem and throughout the holy land will be limited to religious prayers and ceremonies to remember Palestinian martyrs who fell resisting the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land. Bethlehem mayor Hanna Nasser says: sadness engulfs the city and its citizens.
• The Orient House in Jerusalem warns against more Jewish settlement plans in Arab East Jerusalem.

Saturday November 24, 2001

Main Headline

• In addition to the five Palestinian children Sharon killed on Thursday, his occupation soldiers murdered nine more Palestinian men, women and children Friday. Israel's occupation army is still blockading Palestinian cities, towns and villages and imprisoning in large concentration camps more than 3.2 million Palestinians. Prayers at the Al- Aqsa Mosque is limited to those Sharon allows to let through, while thousands of other Palestinians are prevented from reaching the Mosque and forced at the point of a gun to turn back.
• A Palestinian worker was attacked and beaten by an Israeli mob in Tel Aviv. The Palestinian worker was taken to hospital in Tel Aviv suffering from serious injury.
• Lawyers for a number of Palestinian families who lost their children take Sharon to court on charges of committing war crimes.
• The United Nations urges Israel to stop torturing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
• Some Israeli officials said to have expressed their regrets for the killing of the five Palestinian school children.
• An Israeli court in Jerusalem rules to give Jews control of 16 dunums of land in Arab East Jerusalem. Israel plans to build a large Jewish synagogue in Arab East Jerusalem in the Muslim quarter of the old city of Jerusalem.
• An Israeli historian Benny Morris tells the story of a massacre perpetrated by Jewish gangs against Palestinian villagers during the 1948 war at Al -Dawaymeh village. Benni Morris tells the story as it was written in a letter by a Jew who participated in the massacre.
• Israel is not happy with an EU decision regarding exports from illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to EU markets. The EU intends to impose duties on all exports originating from Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Jewish settlements are illegal structures built on occupied Palestinian land in contravention of UN charter and the fourth Geneva convention..
• The Saudi Foreign Minister considers Colin Powell's statement on the Arab Israeli conflict very encouraging.

Thursday November 22, 2001

Main Headline

• Sharon and his murderous army commit another massacre in Gaza in which five Palestinian boys aged 11 to 13 were obliterated to pieces by Israeli bombs fired by Israeli tanks. Sharon's murderous and provocative acts have no limits, war criminal Sharon is bent on destroying the mission of the American envoy Zenni before it even starts. Sharon's army and police raided Palestinian Authority offices in Aizareyyah east of Arab Jerusalem last night, destroying and confiscating property , papers and furniture. Israeli tanks and bulldozers also went into southern Gaza, destroyed Palestinian security positions, demolished three more Palestinian homes and committed its daily crime of destroying more Palestinian fertile lands and uprooted trees. The number of Palestinian homes destroyed and demolished by the Israeli occupation forces in the last 13 months exceeded 960 homes, the number of Palestinian families made destitute in the year 2001 are in their thousands.
• The Israeli siege and closure on Palestinian cities, towns and villages is causing severe hardships and difficulties to the Palestinian population, Israeli sadist soldiers pointing their guns at the direction of Palestinian men, women and children walking through Israeli checkpoints. Thousands of Palestinians are held at any one time for hours on these check points, humiliated, delayed, and angry.
• Yesterday, Israeli checkpoints in Gaza held a Palestinian ambulance taking a Palestinian man to hospital for several hours. The 56 year old man in the ambulance Sami Mohammad Basaleh died while in the ambulance waiting for permission from the Israeli occupation soldiers manning the checkpoint. Israel murders Palestinians in many ways. The world must watch and see who the real terrorists are, Sharon, his government and his occupation forces and those who enable Sharon to continue carrying out his massacres against a civilian population crying freedom.
• Sharon's government established 26 new settlement positions in the occupied Palestinian territories since it took office last January. 832 new housing construction in Jewish settlements were initiated in the same period. According to the Israeli news paper Ma'areve, the Israeli defense minister allocated NIS 50 million for Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories.
• Palestinian official sources say President Arafat will personally oversee the talks scheduled to take place with the American envoy Zenni and his team coming Monday.
• American sources say; the mandate for Zenni is to lift the Israeli siege on the Palestinian territories and turn the situation back to what it was before September 28, 2000.

Wednesday November 21, 2001

Main Headline

• President Bush reaffirms his interests in achieving a peaceful resolution for the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Two American envoys will arrive in the region next Sunday.
• Amnesty International accuses Israel of torturing Palestinian children.
• The European Union and Israel fail to reach an agreement on exports from Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to EU markets. And will take steps to impose duties on exports from these settlements to Europe in the future. Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories including Arab east Jerusalem are illegal entities and must be treated that way.
• In the Middle of the night while families and children are asleep, Israeli occupation tanks and bulldozers stormed the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, and destroyed 18 Palestinian houses leaving large number of families homeless. Television footage of the destruction showed Palestinian boys and girls sifting through the rubble to pick out their belongings. Omar Abu Shaweesh, a father of six who lives in Rafah, said the Israeli bulldozers moved in without warning giving him no time to remove valuables.
  ``We were asleep when they came. We started to run, taking the children out. We were confused. We didn't know what to do but to run,'' Abu Shaweesh told Reuters. ``If the world is looking for an identification for terrorism it's (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon and if they are looking for a manifestation for estruction they should come here,'' he said.
• On direct orders from Sharon and Mofaz, the Israeli occupation army has been using techniques used by Sharon in the early fifties and seventies to raise row after row of Palestinian homes to the grounds , to destroy farm land and uproot trees. This was practiced by the Israeli army all along but was intensified and systematically used after Sharon came to power last February. The right wing Likud party and its extreme right wing allies have had big hopes on Sharon to end the Palestinian uprising and resistance to the Israeli occupation., hence Sharon's unleashing of his destructive power including the murderous killing of large number of Palestinians as revenge and deterrence against each and every act of Palestinian resistance.
• Instead of ending the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation, Sharon brought more destruction and killings to the fields. The numbers of Palestinians killed and injured increased dramatically, the number of Palestinian homes destroyed by Sharon increased many folds, the Palestinian civilian suffering never reached its current levels. On the Israeli side, more Israelis were killed than before, fear and lack of security amongst the Israeli public reached its greatest levels, the Israeli economy is in decline and the prospects for any improvements almost disappeared.
• On the strategic level, Sharon brought back feelings of hostilities, animosities and hate people thought have disappeared. The Arab world became so frustrated , so angry with Israel to an extent no Arab leader can speak of normal relations with Israel. Sharon succeeded in bringing back very bad feeling against Israel, and this is not good for Israel nor is it good for the prospects of peace in the future.
• The Israeli public should wake up to Sharon's agenda and stop him from destroying any more of our mutual hope for just and durable peace necessary for our mutual coexistence.
• Israel said it would replace mobile homes in the Jewish settlement in Hebron with concrete houses, despite Secretary of State Colin Powell's call to halt Jewish settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.
  
  Palestinians condemned the Israeli decision as ''irresponsible'' and a ``flagrant challenge to the American administration.''
• 
  US Secretary of Sate Colin Powell set out U.S. Middle East policy in a speech Monday at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He said two mediators would be sent to the region and repeated calls for a two-state solution and for an end to what he termed Palestinian violence.
• The State Department has accused Israel of impairing U.S.-led efforts to reach a cease-fire, condemning in strong terms the Israeli occupation forces' demolition of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip in an operation mounted hours after Secretary of State Colin Powell urged the sides to set aside violence and move toward a genuine truce.
• The incursion into Palestinian territory and the destruction of residents' houses was a "provocative act" that will hinder truce talks, the State Department said Tuesday.
• The two sentences in question, which were not included in the written version of the speech distributed to American reporters who accompanied Powell on the plane to Louisville, said: "Get that cease-fire in place, and other things can start to happen. Without that cease-fire, we are still trapped in the quicksand of hatred."
• An Israeli government source said the revised formulation accords with Israel's stance that it will not negotiate under fire. The source said he believes Powell added the clarification on orders from the White House.
• The Palestinian leadership welcomes the recent American political positions and call on the American administration to put an end to Israel's aggression on the Palestinian people.
• This view is supported by President George Bush's public remarks immediately after Powell's speech. The president said it is important for Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to remember that in order for peace talks to begin, the violence must drop significantly. Bush added that he had sent this message both to Arafat and to other states with an interest in the region.
• The new American envoy to the region, Anthony Zinni, will therefore arrive in Israel on Sunday to begin talks on a cease-fire, with a mandate from Powell to stay here until a truce is achieved.
• Zinni will be accompanied by Assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs William Burns and Aaron Miller, who heads the Israel desk at the State Department. Burns will be the liaison with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and will remain here only for a few days. Zinni will be the active mediator working with both sides' negotiating teams.
• Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not yet appointed Israel's delegation to the talks.
• Powell said Tuesday that both Israel and the PA have pledged to cooperate with Zinni and work toward a cease-fire.

Tuesday November 20, 2001

Main Headline

• Below is part of the Foreign Policy Address relating to the Arab- Palestinian / Israeli conflict made by Secretary Colin L. Powell at the McConnell Center for Political Leadership University of Louisville, Kentucky: (Full Text of the Speech under ISSUES IN THE NEWS section)

…. It is also a time of danger and a time of challenges requiring American leadership. And nowhere are the challenges greater than in the Middle East, a region where we have fought long for our most basic values and principles, a region where we have stood by our friends, Arab and Israeli, in war and in peace, for over half a century.

Since Israel's establishment over 50 years ago, the United States has had an enduring and ironclad commitment to Israel's security. The United States-Israeli relationship is based on the broadest conception of American national interests, in which our two nations are bound forever together by common democratic values and traditions. This will never change.

One of my proudest moments as a soldier and as an American came in 1991, when American troops led the international coalition of forces that liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's invaders. Later that year, though, I watched with equal pride as Arabs and Israelis gathered together in the aftermath of the Gulf War. They gathered together in Madrid to take advantage of the opportunity created by the successful war. They took the opportunity to launch an historic process of negotiations aimed at ending their conflicts once and for all. They, too, were supported by an American-led coalition, one focused this time on peace rather than on war.

The Middle East is a region facing enormous problems. The hope created in Madrid has faded. Last month marked the tenth anniversary of the Madrid conference, a time to look forward as well as look back. We are looking forward now as we try to capture the spirit of Madrid and create a renewed sense of hope and common purpose for the peoples of the Middle East. America has a positive vision for the region, a vision that we want to share with our friends in Israel and in the Arab world.

We have a vision of a region where Israelis and Arabs can live together in peace, security and dignity. We have a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders. We have a vision of a region where all people have jobs that let them put bread on their tables, provide a roof over their heads and offer a decent education to their children. We have a vision of a region where all people worship God in a spirit of tolerance and understanding. And we have a vision of a region where respect for the sanctity of the individual, the rule of law and the politics of participation grow stronger day by day.

Such a vision seems far away today. Throughout much of the Middle East, the economic challenges are daunting. Too little economic growth creates too few jobs for burgeoning populations. And too much red tape and government control stifle private enterprise and initiative.

Throughout much of the region, political systems do not provide citizens an adequate say in how they are governed. They do not offer a way for people to peacefully work out competing needs and visions for their future.

The solutions to these challenges will come about only through hard work, common sense, basic fairness and a readiness to compromise. They will not be created by teaching hate and division, nor will they be born amidst violence and war.

To help America recognize this positive vision, we will stay engaged. America wants to recognize its positive vision and help all in the region to achieve this positive vision. America will continue to strongly support expansion of economic opportunity in the region, political openness and tolerance, will support efforts to find regional solutions to security challenges, and we will conduct serious diplomacy aimed at resolving regional conflict. The Middle East has always needed active American engagement for there to be progress, and we will provide it, just as we have for over half a century.

The central diplomatic challenge we face in the Middle East is to obtain a just and lasting peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

** Until Israel and all of its neighbors are at peace, our vision of the Middle East at peace will only be a distant dream. President Bush and I are convinced that the Arab-Israeli conflict can be resolved, but that will only happen if all of us, especially Israelis and Palestinians, face up to some fundamental truths.

To begin with, Palestinians must accept that, if there is to be real peace, Israelis must be able to live their lives free from terror as well as war. The Palestinian leadership must make a 100 percent effort to end violence and to end terror. There must be real results, not just words and declarations. Terrorists must be stopped before they act. The Palestinian leadership must arrest, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of terrorist acts. The Palestinians must live up to the agreements they have made to do so. They must be held to account when they do not.

Whatever the sources of Palestinian frustration and anger under occupation, the Intifada is now mired in the quicksand of self-defeating violence and terror directed against Israel. Palestinians need to understand that however legitimate their claims, they cannot be heard, let alone be addressed, through violence. And as President Bush has made clear, no national aspiration, no remembered wrong can ever justify the deliberate murder of the innocent. Terror and violence must stop and stop now. (Applause.)

Palestinians must realize that the violence has had a terrible impact on Israel. The lynching of Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, the assassination of the cabinet minister and the killing of Israeli children feed Israelis' deepest doubts about whether Palestinians really want peace. The endless messages of incitement and hatred of Israelis and Jews that pour out of the media in so much of the Palestinian and Arab worlds only reinforce these fears. No one can claim a commitment to peace while feeding a culture of hatred that can only produce a culture of violence. The incitement must stop.

**Palestinians must accept that they can only achieve their goals through negotiation. That was the essence of the agreements made between Israelis and Palestinians in Madrid, and again in Oslo in 1993. There is no other way but direct negotiation in an atmosphere of stability and non-violence.

**At the same time, Palestinians must also be secure and in control of their individual lives and collective security. In the absence of peace, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been the defining reality of Palestinians' lives there for over three decades, longer than most of the Palestinians living there have been alive.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have grown up with checkpoints and raids and indignities. Too often they have seen their schools shuttered and their parents humiliated. Palestinians need security as well. Too many innocent Palestinians, including children, have been killed and wounded. This, too, must stop. (Applause.)

**The occupation hurts Palestinians, but it also affects Israelis. The sad truth is that it is the young people who serve on the front lines of conflict who are at risk. Embittered young Palestinians throw stones, and young Israeli soldiers on the other side learn only that Palestinians are to be feared, seen as enemies. One thing I've learned in my life is that treating individuals with respect and dignity was the surest path to understanding. Both sides need to treat the other with respect. Humiliation and lack of respect are just another path to confrontation.

**Israeli settlement activity has severely undermined Palestinian trust and hope. It preempts and prejudges the outcome of negotiations and, in doing so, cripples chances for real peace and security. The United States has long opposed settlement activity. Consistent with the report of the committee headed by Senator George Mitchell, settlement activity must stop.

**For the sake of Palestinians and Israelis alike, the occupation must end. And it can only end with negotiations. Israelis and Palestinians must create a relationship based on mutual tolerance and respect so negotiations can go forward.

My friends, it should be clear from these realities that the way back through a political process will be neither quick nor easy. That's the bad news.

**The good news is that a framework for a solution exists. It is based on the core principles of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which are rooted in the concept of land for peace. Madrid also calls for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, including agreements with Syria and Lebanon.

Rejectionists say that there has been no progress over the years trying to achieve those objectives. They are wrong. Over the past decade, Arabs and Israelis have proven that negotiations can work and can achieve results. At Madrid in October of 1991, through the Oslo process beginning in 1993, and in the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty. And, last year, there was hope as Israelis and Palestinians negotiated on permanent status issues. The questions proved excruciatingly difficult, but issues long avoided were finally addressed.

After a year of violence and trauma, finding a way forward will not be easy. It will take time, it will take trust. But the tools to rebuild confidence and revive a political process are available and they are available now. They are found in the security work plan negotiated by CIA Director George Tenet, and the Mitchell Committee report, which both the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have accepted, and which the entire international community has strongly endorsed.

The steps they outline offer Israelis and Palestinians a roadmap to a cease-fire and an end to the violence.

** Such steps must include an end to closures in order to bring tangible improvement in the daily lives of Palestinians and the rapid restoration of economic hope into every Palestinian home. Implementation of the Mitchell report shows the way to restoring trust and confidence and moving rapidly to the resumption of negotiations.

We will do all we can to help the process along. We will push, we will prod. We will present ideas.

For example, there are a number of economic and political steps in existing agreements --they are there now -- which, if we implemented, could contribute to momentum toward peace. But notwithstanding everything we do, at the end of the day, it is the people in the region taking the risks and making the hard choices who must find the way ahead. The only lasting peace will be the peace the parties make themselves.

**Both sides will need to face up to some plain truths about where this process is heading as they turn to the challenges of negotiating permanent status issues. Palestinians must eliminate any doubt, once and for all, that they accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. They must make clear that their objective is a Palestinian state alongside Israel, not in place of Israel, and which takes full account of Israel's security needs.

The Palestinian leadership must end violence, stop incitement and prepare their people for the hard compromises ahead. All in the Arab world must make unmistakably clear, through their own actions, their acceptance of Israel and their commitment to a negotiated settlement.

**Israel must be willing to end its occupation, consistent with the principles embodied in Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and accept a viable Palestinian State in which Palestinians can determine their own future on their own land and live in dignity and security. They, too, will have to make hard compromises.

Ultimately, both sides will have to address the very, very difficult permanent status issues. The future of Jerusalem is a challenge which the two parties can only resolve together through negotiations, taking into account the religious and political concerns that both will bring to the table. Any solution will also have to protect the religious interests of Jews, Christians and Muslims the world over.

On Palestinian refugees, the two parties must strive for a just solution that is both fair and realistic. Again, if there is to be a lasting peace, both sides will have to embrace negotiations on these and the other tough issues before them. The goal can be nothing less than an end to their conflict and a resolution of outstanding claims.

As we have for half a century, the United States is ready to play an active leadership role in helping the parties along the road to a more hopeful future. Toward that end, President Bush and I have asked Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns to return to the region later this week for consultations.

I am also pleased to announce this morning that Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni has agreed to serve as a senior advisor to me, with the immediate mission of helping the parties achieve a durable cease-fire and to move along the lines of the Tenet security work plan and the Mitchell Committee Report.

Tony Zinni is a good friend of mine. He is a distinguished soldier, a Marine, with a long experience in the Middle East, particularly on security issues. He will be an invaluable addition to our team.

I heard from Prime Minister Sharon this morning that Israel is forming a senior-level committee to work with the Palestinians on the negotiation and implementation of a cease-fire and what follows from that. I also understand that Chairman Arafat remains ready to do likewise and to engage on these issues through a similar senior-level committee.

I have asked General Zinni to go to the region and remain in the region to work with these two committees and to lend our strongest efforts to the establishment of a cease-fire. Get that cease-fire in place, and other things can start to happen. Without that cease-fire, we are still trapped in the quicksand of hatred. I expect these new committees, with General Zinni's participation, to begin working in the very, very near future.

To help this process, the United States remains ready to contribute actively to a third party monitoring and verification mechanism acceptable to both parties. With a successful cease-fire, and as we move forward on the Mitchell Report and Tenet work plan, we will work urgently with our international partners on an economic reconstruction effort to help rebuild the Palestinian economy. (Applause.)

We cannot hope to turn the current situation around by acting alone, nor should we want to. As in Madrid, so too does our current quest for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians depend on the support of our friends. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Egypt and Jordan, with the European Union, the United Nations Secretary General, with Russia and our many other partners in this effort. They have been so helpful; they all stand behind the Mitchell Committee Report.

My friends, the stakes in our effort are enormous. It would be a tragedy to divert the energies and talents of another generation of young people from peace and prosperity to war and survival. It would be a tragedy to sacrifice so many more potential presidents and prime ministers and peacemakers and poets to this cruel conflict. It is time -- no, it is past time -- to end this terrible toll on the future. It is time -- past time -- to bring the violence to an end and to seek a better day. (Applause.)

Today is the 24th anniversary of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic visit of peace and reconciliation to Jerusalem. As we work to make our vision a reality, we should recall the vision and courage of President Sadat, and of the region's other great peacemakers: Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Jordan's King Hussein. They are no longer with us, but their legacy lives on and inspires us.

President Bush and I are determined to pursue this quest, and with the peoples of the Middle East, to make the vision of the region at peace a reality. History, fate and success have combined to compel American leadership in the Middle East and around the globe. We welcome the challenge. We welcome the opportunity to use our power and influence to make the world a better place for all of God's children.

US Secretary of State emphasizes the need to stop stopping Jewish settlement activities, ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian in accordance with UN resolutions 242 and 338, and the establishment of the State of Palestine.

Ending the Palestinian suffering, ending the closure and allowing the Palestinian economy to move forward.

Sending an important American retired general to guide and to lend American efforts to establish a lasting cease-fire and an end to violence in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Israel.

Time is very important for the successful implementation of the America vision as expressed by President Bush and his Secretary of state Colin Powell. Indicating the urgency and the need for an immediate start is emphasized by what Secretary Powell said:

"My friends, the stakes in our effort are enormous. It would be a tragedy to divert the energies and talents of another generation of young people from peace and prosperity to war and survival. It would be a tragedy to sacrifice so many more potential presidents and prime ministers and peacemakers and poets to this cruel conflict. It is time -- no, it is past time -- to end this terrible toll on the future. It is time -- past time -- to bring the violence to an end and to seek a better day." The beginning of this process, implementing the Tenet security plan and the Mitchell report is immediate and can not wait any longer.

**********************************

• Zenni and Burns will arrive in the region this week.
• The EU delegation that visited the Middle East last week was met warmly in Ramallah , Cairo and Damascus. In Israel, the delegation headed by the Belgian prime minister was asked by Olmert to go to hell. The European delegation says: The next few weeks are very crucial. Shimon Peres decided not to meet with EU delegation in Brussels today.
• Israel arrested on and off 600 Palestinian children since September 28, 2000. Palestinian children are tortured and terrorized in Israeli jails. UNICEF condemned the torture of 160 Palestinian children currently in Israeli jails.
• Chief of Palestinian police in Gaza says: Israeli occupation troops killed in cold blood two injured policemen. The policemen were on patrol in Palestinian controlled territories when they were ambushed by the Israeli occupation forces. Another Palestinian young man was killed near the village of Burqa
• Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the Palestinian city of Rafah and destroyed three Palestinian homes, another group of soldiers accompanied with tanks and bulldozers stormed into Beit Hanoun, demolished three homes, destroyed farmland and uprooted trees.
• A Belgian court summons Sharon for questioning next week on war crimes charges against Palestinian refugees and Lebanese citizens at the Sabra and Chatilla massacres of 1982 in which more than 1500 people were murdered by Christian Phalangists protected and armed then by the Israeli invading army of Sharon.
• An unofficial negotiations to take place in South Africa next week between Palestinian officials and members of the Israeli left.

Monday November 19, 2001

Main Headline

• A mother and two of her children were hit and gravely injured when Israeli tanks opened fire at their home in Khan Younis refugee camp early this morning. Israeli tanks open fire with tank shells and heavy machine guns at Palestinian homes almost every day in Gaza and many areas in the West bank. Each day there are people killed and injured, home destroyed, trees uprooted and agriculture farm land turned to waste.
• In addition to that, Israeli occupation forces and Jewish settlers block roads, and have been placing Palestinian communities under siege, with hardly any work and an ever deteriorating economic conditions, poverty and near starvation.
• Israel occupied the West Bank including Arab Jerusalem and Gaza in June 1967, since then, Israel, brought Jewish settlers from all over the world to settle Palestinian land, steal its resources most importantly water. Palestinians who in any shape or form try to resist the Israeli occupation are automatically labeled 'terrorist'. Israel and its occupation forces murdered around 900 Palestinians over the last 13 months 40% of whom were children, maimed and injured tens of thousands, demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes and looted and destroyed thousands upon thousands of land plots planted with trees and other agriculture produce.
• Israel sees Palestinian quest for freedom and liberation as a threat to its existence. Israel did not comply with any UN resolution calling for its withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel reneged on the Oslo and other agreements reached with the Palestinian people and tried to lure the Palestinian people to accept its occupation, its settlements and the control of Arab East Jerusalem. Israel has been using its brutal force mainly against unarmed Palestinian civilian population in order to compel the Palestinian people to accept its vision of a solution, effectively robbing the Palestinian people of its land, resources, self determination and freedom.
• Israeli occupation troops killed two Palestinian security men in Gaza last night. A Palestinian security source said Israeli tanks fired at a Palestinian security position in Gaza killing the two. Israel over the last 13 months of Intifada targeted Palestinian security positions accusing them of not stopping Palestinian resistance to its occupation. Two more Palestinians died of their wounds last night, the first from the town of Yabad in the northern Western bank and the other from Al- Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza, both were shot by Israeli occupation forces early this month.
• Sharon rejected a European call for the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinian side. The EU said to have prepared a document dealing with the establishment of a Palestinian state and offering international and Arab security guarantees for Israel.
• Chief of external policy at the European Union described Sharon's insistence on one week of complete quite as stupid. Yossi Sarid, Israel's opposition leader said , complete quite only exists in grave yards and cemeteries. Yossi Belin of the Israeli Labor Party says: The seven days of quite are Sharon's invention.
• Sharon conducts 'the dialogue of deaf' with the European Union.
• The Jewish mayor of West Jerusalem attacked the Belgian Prime Minister calling him ' dirty' and asked the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to send him to hell. Olmert accused the Belgian government 'of conducting a clear cut policies of anti -Semitism.'
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell will deliver a foreign policy speech today at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. It is expected that Powell will expand on President Bush's vision on the two state solution Palestine and Israel to achieve peace in the Middle East and America's war on terrorism.

Sunday November 18, 2001

Main Headline

• In a press conference held in Ramallah in the presence of a high powered EU delegation, President Arafat renewed Palestinian commitments to peace as a strategic choice based on international legitimacy as expressed in the UN charter and UN resolutions relevant to the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
• Head of the EU delegation Prime Minister Guy Vehofstadt of Belgian said: There is an international consensus on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Israel meanwhile accuses the EU of siding with the Palestinian people, and according to reports emanating from the Israeli prime minister's office , Sharon would not consider EU initiatives or peace proposal before the EU reconsider its position towards Israel. The Israeli prime minister view the United Nations as anti Israel and hence his office refuses to receive Terje Larson, United Nations permanent representative in the Palestinian territories , let alone meeting the Israeli prime minister.
• Christian Evangelists , the Jewish lobby and Jewish media in the US are applying much pressure on the Bush administration to cancel a scheduled foreign policy speech by US Secretary of State Colin Powell tomorrow.
• This morning, Israel army sources said the Israeli occupation troops withdrew from the Palestinian city of Tulkarm, Palestinian sources say, the Israeli occupation troops are still on the gates of the city and that it is under siege, the same as all other Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
• The Swedish Lutheran Church in Jerusalem says: Israeli occupation troops attempted to storm Augusta Victoria hospital in Arab Jerusalem and that the Israeli action is an attack and aggression on the dignity of the Palestinian people and establishments in Arab Jerusalem.
• The Romanian minister of information currently on a visit to Palestine says: the solution for the Arab Israeli conflict lies in Israel withdrawing its occupation troops from Arab land occupied in the war of 1967, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
• Kamal Kharazi, the Iranian foreign minister says: finding a solution for the Palestine problem means ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.

Saturday November 17, 2001

Main Headline

• The siege and tight closures on Palestinian towns, cities and villages are as bad as ever, tens of thousands of Palestinians were prevented from praying at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday- the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, tens of thousands of others were prevented from reaching the Arab city of Jerusalem due to closures and siege. Israeli occupation troops forced people at the point of a gun to turn back. In a new technique to suppress Palestinian demonstrators, Israeli occupation troops fired hundreds of tear gas bombs within a very short period of time yesterday and today. Yesterday in Al-Bireh more than fifty Palestinian demonstrators were hurt due to the inhalation of poisonous gas Israel fires at these people, including an 11 year old boy Sajed Attallah Fahed who was seriously injured and is now laying in Ramallah hospital. This morning in the northern Palestinian town of Yabad, Israeli occupation troops fired tear gas bombs at hundreds of school children, many were hurt and taken to hospitals.
• Israel’s defense minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer lies to the world when he speaks of easing restrictions on the Palestinian people on the occasion of Ramadan. He knows very well his occupation army is tightening the siege and are causing more suffering, yet Ben Eliezer is prepared to lie. It is the duty of foreign journalists and diplomats in Palestine and Israel to expose Ben Eliezer’s lies and show the world the unbelievable situation on Palestinian roads and Israeli checkpoints humiliating a whole population and destroying its economy.
• A Palestinian man from Gaza was murdered by Israeli special forces in Ramle inside the green line, two others were injured and a fourth was arrested. In the difficult economic situation in Palestine, the closure, and the high levels of unemployment, Palestinian youth take risks to find any work opportunity that might be available. The Israeli police and security forces have been hunting such Palestinians going to work inside Israel, as Palestinian life is not worth much for the Israeli government, people and troops, any Israeli is encouraged to shoot Palestinians, in the absence of any other reason, yesterday’s killing of this Palestinian man from Gaza in Ramle comes within this context. The Israeli government recently has been awarding ‘honor certificates’ for those who killed Palestinians. Extra judicial killing by the Israeli government has been taking place over the last 13 months. Palestinians whom Israel says are suspects of ‘terror attacks’ are deliberately targeted and killed. As always innocent bystanders and passersby are also killed by this Israeli targeted assassinations.
• The Israeli government is angry with Belgium because a local Belgian TV station aired the BBC’s PANORAMA program shedding light on the role of the current Israeli prime minister in the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps back in 1982. More than a thousand Palestinian and Lebanese men, women and children were killed in that massacre. At the time Sharon was the defense minister of Israel whose forces invaded Lebanon and reached Beirut, making it possible for Israel’s Christian allies under the protection and the direct participation of the Israeli invading army, to commit the massacre.
• The Israeli government is building new Jewish settlements and expanding many others in Arab East Jerusalem, the Jordan valley and other parts of the West Bank. Sharon promised his Likud party to bring one million more Jewish settlers, and the plans for this is to settle them in the occupied Palestinian territories. While Israel is bringing more Jewish settlers from all over the world to settle Palestinian land, the Israeli government is busy confiscating Palestinian land, destroying Palestinian homes and tearing Palestinian farmland apart, while uprooting thousands upon thousands of trees, particularly in Khan Younis in Gaza and the northern West Bank.
  In Arab East Jerusalem, Olmert municipality issues order after order for the Israeli police and occupation army to demolish more and more Palestinian homes in the city. Israel’s attempt to empty Arab east Jerusalem is going ahead, and has been for 34 past years of occupation. Despite of all Israeli efforts, the population of Arab east Jerusalem is on the increase. As it is, Palestinian Arabs in Arab East Jerusalem within Olmert municipality boundaries of the city, as per his definition, are more than 230,000 Palestinians, in the old city’s Muslim and Christian quarters live 33,000 Palestinians compared to no more than 2500 Jews. During the day there are in excess of 65,000 Palestinians in the Old City. In Arab East Jerusalem as defined by the Palestinian people to include the Arab neighborhoods immediately surrounding Arab East Jerusalem, the number of Palestinian Arabs are more than 400,000. The landscape of Arab East Jerusalem stretches from Bethlehem in the south via Sur Baher, Um Touba, Beit Safafa, Jabal al Mukaber, Silwan, the Old City, Musrarah, Wadi al Joz, Shuafat, Beit Hanina, Dahiyat al-Barid, Al- Ram, Qalandia, Kufr Aqab and Ramallah and Al-Bireh in the north.
• Israel forbids the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council Abu Ala’a from returning home to the West Bank / Palestine. Last week PLC head Ahmed Qurai’ met Israel’s foreign minister Peres in Sweden.
• A very high level European Union delegation arrives in Palestine tonight. Europe is a very strong economic ally with Israel and has the economic power to pressure Israel to comply with human rights and civil norms if not complying with United Nations resolutions. The EU must act immediately to force Israel to stop its inhumane barbaric behavior of imprisoning a whole population and lift the siege and closure on the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories. The EU can and must do that if it has any credibility and sense of justice. The Palestinian people have seen EU delegations come and go for months after months without any tangible results, on the contrary, things are getting worse, and hence a move on the part of the EU to force Israel to toe the line of international legitimacy and human rights norms is now a must.
• The French President Jacques Chirac says: The continuing conflict in the Middle East creates hate and causes acts of desperation.
• Head of the Red Cross Organization condemns Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
• President Bush congratulates the Muslim people on the occasion of the month of Ramadan.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell will deliver a speech on Monday outlining America’s foreign policy with special emphasis on the Middle East and the Palestinian State.
• The economic situation in Israel said to be in a very bad state, its economy is in recession, levels of unemployment on the rise, businesses are closing , strikes are spread and services are deteriorating.

Thursday November 15, 2001

Main Headline

• Today, Nov. 15 is the 13th anniversary of the declaration of the Palestinian state. It is a public holiday in the Palestinian territories. Palestinians demonstrated in the streets of many cities and villages throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, enforcing national unity and renewing their determination to continue the struggle against the Israeli occupation until complete freedom and a complete end forever to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with Arab Jerusalem as its capital.
• While Shimon Peres speaks of ‘peace’ in the United Nations, his boss, prime minister of Israel Sharon continues waging terror against the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories. Yesterday a mother of five was shot to death in Tulkarm, early this morning, Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered Khan Younis refugee camp and demolished four buildings housing Palestinian refugees, murdered a 25 year old man and injured 30 others. In the village of Sawahreh, Israeli tanks and soldiers stormed the village located south east of Arab Jerusalem close to Bethlehem, destroyed Palestinian property and arrested 8 Palestinians. In Tulkarm, Israeli tanks roamed the streets terrorizing the Palestinian population, a Palestinian man was seriously injured, and ambulances were prevented from reaching him.
• The Palestinian leadership met in Ramallah and issued a statement emphasizing the inevitability of the emergence of the independent Palestinian state. The leadership praised world leaders who spoke of the establishment of the state of Palestine, particularly the US, UK, France and other EU countries, as well as of course all Arab, Muslim and non aligned countries in addition to the Russian Federation China, Japan, India, and other states around the world.
• Friday Nov. 16 is the first day of Ramadan in Palestine. During this blessed month, Palestinian Muslims as all Muslims throughout the world fast during the day and work, at night they eat, pray and visit friends and relatives. The holy month of Ramadan is a month for inspiration, meditation, encouragement and a month of tolerance and steadfastness against oppression and occupation. This Ramadan, as in previous ones during the occupation, Palestinians will endure the cruelty and abhorrent behavior of the Israeli occupiers, their terrorism and intimidation, Palestinians will find ways to walk around their cities and villages, will bypass the roadblocks the Jewish occupation placed on Palestinian roads, go to school, to work and will prove to Israel and its supporters that nothing Israel will do can damage or destroy Palestinian spirit, determination and insistence on its freedom, liberation and independence.
• Palestinian students supported by international students from Europe, America and Australia, challenged the Israeli soldiers and tanks manning the Surda crossroads leading to Bir Zeit University from Ramallah. The Israeli occupation soldiers used live fire, tear gas bombs, and rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse the students.
• Protected by the Israeli occupation army, Jewish settlers began building the nucleus of a settlement on Palestinian land near Al- Khader. Protected by Israeli tanks and soldiers, Israeli bulldozers began opening bypass roads for Jewish settlements on Wadi Fukin agricultural land. The Israeli ministry of housing issued a tender to construct more houses for Jewish settlers at Maale Adumim settlement located on the road connecting Arab East Jerusalem with Jericho and the Jordan valley.
• Olmert municipality of West Jerusalem issue orders to confiscate Palestinian land, destroy Palestinian homes in Bethany, Zayyem and A-Tur in Arab East Jerusalem.
• Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat calls on the US, Russia and Europe to put an end to the continuing Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell says: He made a mistake when he agreed with Sharon on 7 days of quiet. Reports of intensive American European efforts to revive peace talks in the Middle East. Dr. Nabil Shaath says: Secretary Powell agreed to sending international observers to the Palestinian territories but under a different name.

Wednesday November 14, 2001

Main Headline

• On the eve of the anniversary of the declaration of the Palestinian state , the Palestinian Legislative Council reiterates: The independent Palestinian state is the corner stone for a lasting just peace in the region.
• A mother of 5 was shot and killed by Israeli occupation soldiers while at her home in Tulkarm. The Israeli forces are still occupying parts of Tulkarm and Jenin despite repeated calls by the world community on the Sharon government to remove its occupation forces. The latest call came two days ago from the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Sharon rejected the five foreign ministers' call for the withdrawal of the Israeli soldiers from both cities. Yesterday both President Bush and President Putin of Russia repeated their demand that Israel withdraws its forces and immediately enter into peace negotiations with the Palestinian side on the highest level.
• A Palestinian man died on the Israeli checkpoint waiting to go into hospital. The Israeli occupation forces prevented Khairi Abd Zabin 55 years from leaving his village Kufr Romman to go to hospital in Tulkarm.
• In Nablus and Khan Younis two Palestinians murdered by the Israeli occupation forces were laid to rest. Mohammad Reehan 25 years in Nablus and the child Mohammad Abu Mustapha 13 years from Khan Younis.
• A meeting of the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention will be held in Geneva on Dec. 5 to discuss Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights and land. Israel has been breaching article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention including willful killing, torture, unlawful deportation of Palestinians , willful depriving of the rights of fair and regular trial, extensive destruction and appropriation of Palestinian property.
• King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and President Chirac of France discussed the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and means to push the peace process forward. Shiekh Zayed of the United Arab Emirates says: Rooting out terrorism requires solving the Middle East Arab Israeli conflict.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell will deliver an important policy speech coming Monday. Powell says: We are searching for an opportunity to formulate a comprehensive statement on our vision towards a Palestinian state.
• Foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council call on Israel to withdraw its forces from Palestinian cities. President Bush and President Putin call on both Israel and the Palestinian leadership to resume peace negotiations at the highest level immediately.
• A European delegation will visit the region beginning Saturday on a mission to revive the peace process.
• Nelson Mandela expresses his deep concern to President Bush for not meeting President Arafat.

Tuesday November 13, 2001

Main Headline

• The tragedy befallen New York is heart felt in many Palestinian communities who know very well the meaning of suffering. Palestinian communities made of women, men and children, young and old are on daily basis suffering the cruel, callous and terror of an occupation army bent on causing maximum horror on a Palestinian population determined to gain its freedom from a colonizing power ( Israel) bringing Jewish settlers from all parts of the globe to take, confiscate and settle Palestinian land and consume Palestinian natural resources.
• The siege on the Palestinian occupied territories is still enforce, men, women, school children and university students.. indeed the whole Palestinian population is being strangled and terrorized by the current fascist failing government of Ariel Sharon .
• A Palestinian boy 13 years old died yesterday in Khan younis from wounds he received when he was shot by Israeli soldiers last Friday. Another man from the Palestinian village of Tel was killed yesterday after Israeli occupation troops stormed the village supposedly area A. Israeli occupation forces arrested 45 Palestinian men from the village, they moved them from one bring prison into a smaller prison. Human rights organizations recently reported the continuous torture of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails on the hands of the Israeli security personnel.
• Whitewash; This is the title of a press release issued by B'Tselem on Nov. 13, 2001 revealing cover ups and falsifications practiced by the Israeli Military Advocate General's office. The following is the content of the Press Release:
• Whitewash: Office of the Military Advocate General's Investigation into the Death of Khalil al- Mughrabi. Age 11, on July 7, 2001.
• Khalil al- Mughrabi was playing soccer with a group of children in Rafah on Saturday, July 7^th, 2001, when a burst of gunfire hit him in the head, killing him and wounding two of his friends, ages 10 and 12.
• B'Tselem reached internal documents from the office of the Military Advocate General which reveal how the military cleared the soldiers who caused the death of an eleven year old Palestinian boy, covered up the incident, refrained from opening an investigation by the Military police, and issued a false statement regarding the circumstances of the death.
• The documents that B'Tselem received, which are included as annexes to the report, raise the grave concern that cover-ups and falsifications are considered acceptable practice by the Military Advocate General's office.
  In conclusion to its report B'Tselem calls:
  0. To open a Military Police investigation against those involved in the death of Khalil al- Mughrabi and the injury of his two friends;
  1. To take action against those in the Military advocate General's office who intentionally presented a false version of the events;
  2. To transfer the procedure of investigations from the military to an independent and objective body.
• For additional details and to receive a copy of the report, please contact: Lior Yavne- 050-387230.
• On a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Samuel Huntington author of the book Conflict of Civilizations called on the United states to distance itself from Israel and to assist building an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and the removal of all Jewish settlements from the occupied Palestinian territories. This Huntington says will help avoiding a probable clash between Islam and the West.
• President Arafat refused any attempt to go back to partial solutions and partial settlements.
• Belgium's Minister of Regional Cooperation met a Palestinian delegation in Arab East Jerusalem and discussed with them the difficult conditions Palestinian Jerusalemits are suffering under the Israeli occupation.
• Palestinian Telecommunications Company takes Israeli mobile phone operators- illegally operating in the Palestinian territories- to court suing them for US $ 450 million.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell said to have prepared a speech on the Middle East containing new elements to solve the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

Monday November 12, 2001

Main Headline

• Addressing the 56^th U,N, General assembly session in New York, President Yasser Arafat appealed for more active international involvement in the Palestinian Israeli peace process, and demanded international observer force to protect the Palestinian people under occupation and to oversee the implementation of the cease-fire.
• President Arafat singled out the United States, Britain, Russia, France, China, Japan and the European Union as countries and alliances that would take a greater role in the process.
• The absence of such active participation, the president said, would make the situation between Israel and the Palestinians even more explosive and fragile.
• President Arafat said: Israel is practicing "state terror" and "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinian people, adding, international presence is needed to supervise and implement a cease-fire.
• President Arafat said, the Palestinians are observing the cease-fire, but Israel is constantly violating it.
• President Arafat thanked President Bush for expressing in his address on Saturday a U.S. commitment to the creation of two states -- Israel and Palestine -- as called for by UN resolutions.
• In his speech, President Arafat said the number of Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories has doubled since the start of the peace process, a reflection of Israel's lack of seriousness and commitment to past agreements.
• Noncompliance by Israel, he said, was what prompted the 13-month Palestinian Intifada. The uprising has resulted in more than 1,700 Palestinians killed and 37000 maimed and injured.
• President Arafat added that Israel used the might of the Israeli army, including F-15's, F-16s, Apache helicopters, tanks, missiles, armored vehicles, navy ships and lethal weapons, including the internationally prohibited ones against the Palestinian people, and that Israel is still using its force to restrict the movement of people and goods, preventing students and teachers from going to schools, workers from reaching their workplaces -- measures that constitute a real flagrant violation of basic human rights.
• President Arafat said the Palestinian economy is devastated and billions of dollars have been lost.
• President Arafat repeated his call for Israel to withdraw to the pre 1967 borders and for Al- Qus Al- Shareef, Arab East Jerusalem- to be the Palestinian capital.
• The President added : the Palestinians have fully and positively cooperated with all the international efforts and initiatives, including the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative and the Mitchell Report., and pledged Palestinian full commitment to the peace process.
• Israel sent its tanks and bulldozers into Biet Hannoun in Gaza , destroyed more fertile land , uprooted trees and bombed Palestinian homes. This morning, Israeli occupation troops accompanied by tanks, bulldozers and helicopter gunships stormed also into the Palestinian village of Tell in the northern West Bank. The village supposedly under Palestinian full control as part of area A. The Israeli occupation soldiers killed a Palestinian man and injured others and destroyed at least one Palestinian home. Sharon's government made a mockery of the said Oslo designations of Palestinian territories, and very few Palestinians still believe in such designations particularly as Israel has violated the integrity of area A repeatedly and that its is still occupying both Tulkarm and Jenin, cities designated as area A. Three weeks ago, the Bush Administration ordered Israel to withdraw its occupation forces from area A altogether and to stay out. Sharon's government did not respond to the American administration and this morning it returned to its usual self of violating agreements and defying President Bush's wishes.
• U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says: Palestine entered the vocabulary of the American administration, and that the next few days will witness important developments.
• President Jack Chirac calls for the convening of an international conference on the Middle East . The Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia says: Saudi Arabia expects an American statement of principles on the Arab Israeli conflict.
• An Israeli man in charge of security within Israel proper was shot and killed and another man was injured last night. Israel suspects Palestinians of carrying out the attack.
• Israeli occupation troops stationed on the gates of Al- Arroub College near Hebron prevented college students from attending school and used live fire as well as stun and tear gas grenades to disperse the Palestinian students. Al- Arroub college is a Palestinian college, located on Palestinian land, and attended by Palestinian students and Palestinian teaching staff, yet Israel and its occupation forces protected by American made war planes and tanks.. etc are still exercising its terror against a population struggling to gain their freedom and independence. The Israeli terror of occupation must be terminated immediately.
• Israeli occupation forces launch a wide arrest campaign against the Palestinian population of Abu Dis village east of Arab Jerusalem. The Israeli ministry of defense announces its intentions to stay in Tulkarm and Jenin.

Sunday November 11, 2001

Main Headline

• Israeli tanks and bulldozers stormed into Khan Younis and tore up Palestinian farmlands. In the Palestinian village of Araka, 12 Israeli tanks and two bulldozers stormed the village and destroyed a Palestinian house comprised of four apartments making four families destitute. The Israeli government is taking its revenge against a Palestinian family, one member of which participated in an attack on Israelis inside Israel.
• Addressing the UN General Assembly meeting, President Bush spoke of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side and warns that ‘terrorists’ might use nuclear and biological weapons.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell will meet President Arafat in New York this week.
• In a speech before the Egyptian people’s Assembly, president Mubarak warned Israel: The Palestinian people will never surrender to Israel. And Syria and Lebanon will not forgo one centimeter of their occupied land.
• Syria accuses Israel of bringing terror to the Middle East.
• Arab league Secretary Amre Mousa says: Sharon’s so-called peace plan is another futile attempt by Sharon to legitimize the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
• The Iranian president Mohammad Khatami says: If the Palestinian people accept Israel, then Iran will.
• Chief of the Red Cross Organization says: Israel’s practices against the Palestinian people and land violate the fourth Geneva Conventions on human rights.
• Washington and London said to be preparing for a comprehensive peace initiative in the Middle East based on the Land for Peace formula.
• In his address to the UN General Assembly, the South African President Embeki said, the Palestinian suffering under occupation must come to an end.

Saturday November 10, 2001

Main Headline

• Palestinians are not happy with Rice statement excluding a meeting between President Arafat and President Bush. The Palestinians accuse Washington of siding with Israel and applying double standards vis a vis 'terrorism.' The Saudi Minister of Foreign affairs expressed his country's disappointment and anger at President Bush's apparent back tracking on his promise to submit a peace initiative on the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
• Three extreme right wing groups in Israel demand from the Israeli government to turn the Omariyyeh Muslim School in the Old City of Jerusalem into a Jewish temple. Palestinians expect more land confiscation in Arab Jerusalem. An Israeli decision was taken to destroy two more Palestinian buildings in Biet Hanina neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem.
• President Arafat leaves for New York to attend the annual General assembly meeting and to address the United Nations.
• Israeli occupation forces kill a Palestinian young man in Khan Younis, the young man is deaf and can not speak. Justifying their crime, the Israeli occupation spokesman said, the man did not respond to their warnings.
• An Israeli newspaper reported the Israeli intelligence practice torture against Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.
• The Israeli forces turn the villages around Jenin into hunting grounds abusing and punishing innocent Palestinian bystanders.
• The Mayor of Hebron says: Jewish settlers turned the lives of Palestinians in the city into a living hell, and a continuing nightmare.

Thursday November 8, 2001

Main Headline

• In Hebron , Israeli occupation special squads murdered a Palestinian while his family was watching, his son and other members of his family were injured. The man 50 years old from the village of Yatta was accused by Israel of killing a Jewish settler three years ago. Extra judicial Israeli killing of Palestinians is on the increase. Two days ago, Israeli soldiers executed three injured Palestinians near the city of Nablus.
• Head of the Red Cross Organization described the execution of the three injured Palestinians by Israeli occupation soldiers as savage and an animal act. The Israeli occupation troops tighten the siege on Ramallah and Al- Bireh.
• The Palestinian leadership issued a communiqué calling on the international community to pressure Israel to respect the cease-fire, stop assassinating Palestinians and put an end to aggressions and escalations.
• Palestinians in Bethlehem, Nablus and Jenin say goodbye to six Palestinians murdered by the Israeli occupation forces in the last 48 hours.
• Sharon plans to bring one million more Jewish settlers into the occupied Palestinian territories.
• The Israeli high court of 'justice' allows Jewish settlers to remain in Al- Kurd family house in Arab east Jerusalem.
• Palestinian ministers Abd Rabboh and Nabil Shaath deny that President Arafat will declare the Palestinian state at the UN next week. France Foreign Minister Huber Vedrine says: The only solution for the Middle East conflict is the establishment of a Palestinian state.
• US Secretary of State Colin Powell said to be pleased with Israel's withdrawal from Ramallah. Powell is expected to meet President Arafat in New York next week. Palestinian Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Nabil Shaath and Palestinian Legislative Council member Dr. Hannan Ashrawi will also meet Powell in the US this week.
• The British Prime Minister Tony Blair says: The west must change its relations with Islam. Blair met President Bush in Washington yesterday and said to have ask the President to put his full weight behind pushing the peace process in the Middle East.
• Arab League Secretary General Dr. Amre Mousa says: The Arabs will not be tricked again by a phony resumption of peace talks.
• The Israeli Knesset remove the parliamentary immunity from Dr. Azmi Bshara, In response, Dr. Bshara said, lifting his immunity for political reasons shows how false democracy is in Israel.
• Since the beginning of the Intifada just over a year ago, more than 800 Palestinians have been killed (as well as 190 Israelis).
  Among the dead are 200 children, 4 physicians, 6 paramedics, 3 journalists, and 32 women.
  Twenty-five persons were killed by Israeli settlers.
  Ninety-three people were assassinated
  Of the 31,139 persons injured, 7,500 are children and 1,400 are women
  Ninety-eight ambulances have come under fire and were damaged or destroyed. One Palestinian ambulance was taken over by the Israeli army which used it in its invasion of Azzoun and Salfit where numerous villagers were arrested. In the month of October 2001 alone, 87 Palestinians were killed.
• Since January 2001, the Israeli government has begun 25 new Israeli settlements. More land was confiscated around Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Municipality approved the building of 270 new housing units. Eighteen hectares of land from Sheikh Jarrah and 12 hectares from Esawiyyeh in Jerusalem were confiscated in addition to 30 hectares near Ramallah and 14 hectares near Sammou/Hebron. One hundred new military posts were erected. Thousands of trees were uprooted (over 8,100 in October 2001). Settlers have poisoned and destroyed agricultural land in the area of Toubas. Water reservoirs and pipe systems were destroyed by bulldozers. In October 2001, a total of 467 houses were destroyed either partially or completely. In Hebron, seven homes were completely destroyed, and the Israeli army occupied 20 other houses and evacuated their inhabitants. In October, 328 Palestinians were detained and 342 cars were destroyed. Also due to the siege, ninety-two schools were completely closed. Several schools were shot at or raided. The Water Crisis in Palestinian Villages Without a Water Network
• Some two hundred thousand Palestinians living in 218 West Bank villages are not connected to a water network, and therefore have no running water. This population suffers a severe water crisis. They are unable to meet their basic water needs, including basic hygiene, house cleaning and using the toilet, and as a result, face significant health risks.
• The restrictions on movement imposed by the IDF since the beginning of the intifada aggravate the crisis and make it difficult for water tankers to transport water to the needy communities.
• The source of the water shortage in the West Bank as a whole, and in villages without a water network in particular, derives mostly from two factors:

  • The extremely inequitable division of the water sources shared by Israel and the Palestinians
  • Israel's failure to invest in water infrastructure throughout the years of occupation.

  Consequently, the average Israeli consumes six times as much water as the average West Bank Palestinian resident.

• Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Israel has continued to maintain almost complete control of the water sector in the Occupied Territories. Every new water project, including projects in Area A, which is under "complete" PA control, requires the consent of Israel's representatives on the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee. If the project is to be implemented in Area C, Israeli Civil Administration approval is also required.

Wednesday November 7, 2001

Main Headline

• Palestinian ambulance crew witness a cold-blooded execution of three wounded Palestinians near Nablus. A group of 7 to 8 Israeli soldiers fired at the wounded killing them instantly while the Red Cross crew was watching 50 meters away. The execution of wounded Palestinians perhaps is one of the new techniques Prime Minister Sharon was talking about in dealing with the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. World human rights organizations, including Israeli human rights groups as well as Israeli journalists of integrity are asked to investigate this barbaric action and bring about the truth behind such inhumane action on the part of the Israeli occupation soldiers. Those responsible should be brought to justice as this incident is another example of war crimes committed by Sharon and his government.
  The Palestinian leadership calls for an immediate international investigation of this cold blooded execution of the three wounded Palestinians.
• The Israeli occupation army withdrew from areas it occupied three weeks ago in Ramallah. Israeli tanks and occupation forces however are still besieging the city and all other Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps, preventing the general public from conducting its daily businesses. Recent rain added to the misery of Palestinian pedestrians who have to walk now through muddy roads and fields taking their children to school or going to their work place.
• Bir Zeit University students and staff demonstrated yesterday against the continuing closure of roads to Bir Zeit University which lead to an ongoing break in the process of education at the university. Israeli occupation troops used tear gas bombs and stun grenades to break up the student demonstration.
• Two other Palestinians were killed when a booby trapped car exploded at Jenin refugee camp. Palestinian official sources say, the Israeli government and its security apparatus are behind the assassination.
• President Arafat says: European countries strongly support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmad Qurai said yesterday: Any peace initiative or suggestion not based on UN Security Council resolutions will be rejected. President Bush is not expected to meet President Arafat at the United Nations.
• Dr. Sari Nusiebeh, Palestinian political commissioner in Jerusalem says: We will not accept less than a full independent state on Palestinian land occupied by Israel in 1967 empty of any Jewish settlement.
• According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel is in the throes of a painful recession, its economy is desperate for good news, tourism is in an ongoing slump, coupled with a downturn in foreign investment. This economic situation in Israel has taken a heavy toll on its financial system, generating what it terms as a painful rise in unemployment and a depreciation in the value of the Shekel. The Israeli economy at the moment is suffering from a spate of industrial strikes.
  The Jerusalem Post of course does not blame Sharon’s right wing government for the deteriorating Israeli economy, nor does it recognize that Sharon’s policies of destruction and the continuing useless settlements built on Palestinian land are major contributors to Israel’s spiral economic down turn.
• “An acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly session last September 2001 between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his foreign minister Shimon Peres during which Sharon reportedly yelled at Peres, saying: “Don’t worry about American pressure, we control America.”
  According to the Israeli Hebrew Radio, Yisrael Wednesday, Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and turn the US against us. At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying “every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that…I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”
• During the 8 years of negotiations 1992-2000 between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership, 18 Jewish settlements appeared in Gaza territory. Private Israeli Government documents ‘Secret Israeli Manifest’ Reads: “The lands of the Palestinian territory of Gaza are to be taken one farm a time, until all land, that is prime view property of the Mediterranean, is under Israeli control regardless of the cost in Palestinian lives or livelihood. This will drive the Arabs into starvation and eventually they will not have the strength to fight and will give up and leave these territories.”
  The Israeli destruction of orange and olive groves, other food sources vital to Palestinian life, is a crime unto itself. Anyone interested in the environmental impact of this would be appalled at the number of such farms destroyed by the Israeli government. The Israeli government is acting like its nemesis the Nazi German Government of 1932 to 1945. To make that statement is not hard and is well founded. The Israeli government is a mirror image of the Nazi government, taking homes, land, and lives of those Palestinians daring to resist the Israeli occupation. Thus, the Israeli government calls the Palestinian terrorists, when in fact the Israelis are terrorizing the Palestinians. This has been going on for two score and twelve years. Yet, the ill equipped militia of the Palestinian people has held off the second most modern military force on the planet. Why, if the Palestinians are fighting for their homeland, then which party is the terrorist?
• Similar manifests for each area the Israeli government wants to own exist, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Rafah to name a few. ‘Israel’s peace process means you give up your Homeland or War. The issue is here systematic annexation of Palestinian land. In addition, a developed blueprint; systematically planned many years ago from the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Jewish Congress, with Headquarters in Manhattan.” Shashaa.
  The Palestinians are the unseen victims of the Jewish-made ‘concentration camps’ for those who oppose the Israeli occupation. Take a look at the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Weekly, the Israeli military bulldoze twenty to thirty Palestinian homes. This has been going on for years with the support of the United States of America. This is ‘Jewish justice’ for the Palestinians who oppose them! Yet, the free people of the United States of America are culpable partners to the Israeli’s in this destruction.

Tuesday November 6, 2001

Main Headline

• Accompanied by bulldozers, Israeli tanks penetrate deep into Rafah and Tulkarm destroying more Palestinian homes land and property. Israeli occupation forces tighten the siege on Palestinian cities, towns and refugee camps. Despite the announced withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Qalkilya, Israeli tanks are still stationed at the gates of Qalkilya. A missing Palestinian policeman was found buried in areas where Israeli tanks were stationed. Another Palestinian policeman from Gaza died of his wounds yesterday in Ramallah. Israeli occupation troops shot and seriously injured the man, Said Abu Shmies, 26 years old, on Oct. 21. He died from his wounds yesterday in Ramallah hospital. Palestinians young and old, women and children, school boys and girls, healthy and sick are forced on a daily basis to walk through Israeli checkpoints to reach their destinations, they are walking under the guns of the Israeli occupation soldiers, with dust and teargas in their throats and eyes, rubber and live fire around them. Israeli soldiers usually stand watching with grins on their faces the agony and suffering of a whole population.
  We take this occasion to invite world leaders through their representatives in Arab Jerusalem to come and see the humiliation and degradation of humans at the hands of the so called ‘Israeli defense forces’ more likely murderers and occupiers – on the checkpoints, near Qalandia north of Arab Jerusalem, Surda, Nablus, Hebron, Bethlehem, Qalqilya , Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah.
• Not satisfied with his bloody tactics so far in dealing with the Palestinian uprising against the most ugliest and brutal occupation history ever witnessed, Sharon ordered his killing machine to find new techniques to deal with the Palestinian population.
• Faced with his colossal failure in bringing security to Israel, further destroying the Israeli economy, and succeeding in the isolation of Israel as never before, Sharon comes up with a diplomatic plan to offer to the Palestinian people. A state, without Jerusalem, with security borders 20 km wide along the western side of the Jordan river under Israeli control, and without dismantling any Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories, and of course, no right of return to the Palestinian refugees. How can any body refuse this gem coming from war criminal Sharon?
• Director General of the International Red Cross says: Israel has violated the Fourth Geneva Human Rights Convention, referring to the Israel’s deliberate destruction of Palestinian homes and the building of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Director of the International Red Cross organization singled out the Israeli siege on the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel’s continuous hampering of the works of medical relief and the passage of ambulances carrying Palestinian dead and wounded to and from Palestinian hospitals.
• The Swedish prime Minister says: Israel must withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories, stop its assassination policies and evacuate Jewish settlements.
• America plans to issue a communiqué very soon undertaking the establishment of a Palestinian independent state. The plan being worked out by the Bush and Blair administrations might be revealed next week during the annual General Assembly meetings in New York.
• New European initiatives to end violence between Israel and the Palestinian people. A Palestinian source said that Tony Blair last week suggested the presence of American and European troops on the eastern borders of the Palestinian state alongside the Jordan river and the stationing of international forces as a temporary measure to ensure Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Israel last week arrested two Jewish settlers in Hebron accusing them of causing damage to TIPH forces observing the situation in Hebron. TIPH personnel complain frequently about Jewish harassment to their observer presence in the Palestinian city of Hebron.
• The American Ambassador to Tel Aviv urges President Arafat to do more against what he termed ‘Palestinian radical groups.’
• Israeli naval boats fire at Palestinian boats in the sea of Gaza.
• The Israeli authorities arrested an Israeli soldier while trying to sell his personal weapon. An Egyptian soldier on the Egyptian side of the Palestinian city of Rafah was hit and injured during clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli occupation soldiers.

Monday November 5, 2001

Main Headline

• The Israeli occupation army pulls its tanks out of the Palestinian town of Qalkilya and reinforces its siege on other towns and villages.
• The Israeli army did not withdraw its tanks from Qalkilya into Israeli territory as was reported by the BBC this morning, it pulled its tanks few hundred meters out side the town and remained on West Bank Palestinian land occupied by Israel, the BBC should be careful in its reports.
• Yesterday morning Israeli helicopter gunships bombed Palestinian residential areas north of Gaza and destroyed civilian industrial installations. Sharon’s government apparently is using its ‘security’ excuse to destroy Palestinian workshops and industrial installations, in addition to the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian agriculture sector.
• Palestinian minister of planning Nabil Shaath speaks of a probable meeting between President Arafat and President Bush at the UN premises in New York.
• An Arab follow up committee comprised of ten foreign ministers conclude a meeting in Damascus by calling on the EU and the United States to translate its verbal announcements on a Palestinian state into action. Citing a similar American and Western promise in the early 90’s, Amre Mousa warns the West that the Arab world will not be fooled again.

Sunday November 4, 2001

Main Headline

• Israeli occupation forces destroy three Palestinian homes in Rafah, burn another two in Khan Younis and destroy five workshops in Gaza. A small metalwork and fabrication factory, together with other businesses were destroyed by Israeli Apache helicopters. The businesses were completely destroyed putting an unknown number of people out of work and adding to the economic hardships and strangulation of the Palestinian population. A Palestinian policeman was murdered by Israeli tank fire and several others were injured.
• Israeli occupation forces closing off Bir Zeit town and the University from its surroundings, violently dispersed a student demonstrations demanding lifting the siege on the university and the occupied Palestinian cities towns and villages. Students are unable to attend university and teaching staff suffer from the same treatment. The Israeli occupation soldiers attacked the students, amongst them foreign students and sympathizers, mainly Americans and Europeans, with stun grenades, tear gas bombs and rubber coated steel bullets.
• Sharon and his defense minister Ben Eliezer discuss the presence of the Israeli occupation forces inside Palestinian cities. Citing security reasons, Sharon decides to cancel his trip to Washington to meet with President Bush. Sharon was also scheduled to visit London and hold a meeting with the British prime minister Tony Blair.
• President Arafat met with the Israeli foreign minister Peres in Spain twice. The meeting did not produce any results. Peres does not have a mandate from Sharon to negotiate. Addressing an economic conference held in Spain, President Arafat said: Israel did not respect its international commitments to withdraw immediately from occupied Palestinian cities.
• A Palestinian political leader says: Tony Blair is working on a blue-print for a political paper designed to