- Nine Palestinians, including a 10-year-old boy, were
killed in the territories over the weekend in the two worst days of violence
since the Israel Defense Forces operation in Jenin some three weeks ago.
The clashes in the territories yesterday and Friday also left more than
150 Palestinians and 11 Israelis wounded.
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- At least 10 of the injured Palestinians were reported
to be in serious condition. Two more Palestinians died over the weekend
of wounds sustained earlier in the week.
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- Also at the weekend, and for the first time in about
a month, Palestinians fired a mortar shell at an Israeli target in the
West Bank. There were no reports of injuries in this incident.
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- Cabinet expected to stick with cease-fire
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- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened his cabinet late
last night at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv in light of the violent
weekend in the territories. Political sources in Jerusalem assessed that
the cabinet would decide to uphold the cease-fire, with the meeting called
primarily to pass on a warning to the Palestinian leadership and to explain
the Israeli position to the United States.
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- Sharon also spoke last night with U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and told them that
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was not doing his part to
uphold the cease-fire.
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- The Israeli political sources added that Arafat had not
issued the necessary directives for the implementation of the cease-fire
and the understandings reached with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres during
their meeting last Wednesday. According to the sources, Arafat's general
statements are insufficient and Israel is expecting the PA to take practical
steps in the field, such as making arrests.
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- Peres, for his part, was offended over the weekend by
statements in the name of high-ranking military sources who criticized
the foreign minister for accusing the IDF of adopting too heavy a hand
in dealing with the unrest in the territories. Peres accused the military
sources of overstepping their authority and intervening in political matters.
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- Peres will meet this week with the speaker of the Palestinian
National Council, Abu Ala, to prepare his next meeting with Arafat. Peres
and Abu Ala will serve as a committee intended to oversee the cease-fire
and deal with complaints regarding its violation.
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- Senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials met
Friday in Tel Aviv. After the meeting, the head of the Palestinian Preventive
Security apparatus in Gaza, Mohammed Dahlan, said that the PA would not
carry out arrests for deeds that had already been done, but would only
detain individuals for violating Palestinian law in the future.
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- Sources in the defense establishment said that such an
attitude went against the understandings that had been reached at the meeting.
The Israeli sources noted that the PA had yet to arrest even one of the
108 individuals included in the list handed over to the Palestinians during
the Peres-Arafat meeting. Not one of the 15 most-wanted individuals, who
Israel expect to be arrested by the PA by Tuesday, had been taken into
custody, the sources said.
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- Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told the Voice
of Palestine radio station that arrests were an internal Palestinian matter.
According to Erekat, the pressing matter at present is not the matter of
the arrests, but rather "Israel's obligation to agreements."
He said the Palestinians had been "surprised by the bloody response
of the IDF in Rafah and other places."
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- Erekat added that there could be no separating security
and political discussions, as Israel was trying to do. He said that no
decisions had been taken at the joint Israeli-Palestinian security meetings
with regard to the period of time for the implementation of all the stages
of the program to ease tensions in the territories.
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- The joint Israeli-Palestinian security committee is expected
to convene tomorrow to discuss further steps for the implementation of
the truce. Spokesmen for the PA said that the Palestinians would continue
the planned security meetings with Israel, but at the same time, they accused
the government of Israel and the IDF of deliberately pushing for a military
escalation so as to prevent any progress on the political front.
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- Widespread violence marks intifada anniversary
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- The Palestinians marked the first anniversary of the
outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada Friday with a series of mass demonstrations,
together with shooting and bombing attacks throughout the territories.
The majority of the clashes with Israeli security forces occured Friday,
but continued yesterday as well.
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- The most serious of the weekend's incidents took place
Friday evening in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. Apparently four Palestinians
were busy laying an explosive device intended for detonation against Israeli
forces close to the Termit outpost, which was destroyed in a Palestinian
attack last Wednesday, when, for reasons yet to be clarified, the device
exploded prematurely, killing three of the Palestinians instantly. The
fourth member of the group was critically injured and died yesterday in
hospital.
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- All four men who were killed in the blast were known
members of the "popular resistance committees," an organization
comprised primarily of Fatah supporters and believed to be responsible
for the majority of the fighting and attacks in the southern Gaza Strip.
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- Palestinian sources believe that the four were killed
by an explosive device laid by the Israel Defense Forces in an effort to
prevent terror cells from entering the area. The IDF refused to comment
on the matter.
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- An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed yesterday in clashes
with IDF troops in Dir al-Balah, in the center of the Strip. Palestinian
sources reported dozens of injuries in the incident.
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- Two Palestinians were also killed in Hebron yesterday.
One of them, Yasser Nadhami, an Islamic Jihad activist, was killed in the
south of the city, in an area under full Palestinian control, and appeared
to be the victim of a "work accident" while trying to prepare
an explosive device. The second fatality, a 50-year-old man, was killed
by IDF gunfire.
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- Three IDF soldiers were injured in Hebron by Palestinian
gunfire directed at the homes of Jewish settlers in Tel Romeida and Beit
Hadassah. Two of the soldiers were apparently hit by Palestinian sniper
fire.
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- A 10-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Dreira, was also
killed in the Hebron area yesterday. It seems he was shot by Israeli soldiers
who were responding to Palestinian fire aimed in their direction. Another
Palestinian youth, Mahmoud Sukar, 16, was killed in the Dehaisheh refugee
camp near Bethlehem.
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- Shooting and stone-throwing incidents throughout the
territories - in the areas of Nablus, the Hebron Hills, Tul Karm and the
Erez crossing - also resulted in injuries to 11 Israelis.
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- Early yesterday, a mortar shell was fired at the Tekoa
settlement south of Bethlehem, causing no injuries or damage. Till now,
mortars have been a rare occurence in the West Bank, but the IDF believes
that the Palestinian Authority and affiliated organizations are holding
mortar launchers in other cities in the area, including Nablus. Two mortars
were also fired at Israeli targets in the Gaza Strip.
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- Sarid: Israel not doing enough to uphold truce
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- Friday prayers on the Temple Mount passed without any
significant disturbances, despite warnings that youths would try to mark
the first anniversary of the intifada with rioting and violence at the
site. Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonisky said that recent political
efforts had contributed toward the relatively calm mood on the Mount on
Friday, adding that he hoped the same would apply with regard to the events
scheduled to mark the anniversary of the riots in the Arab sector tomorrow.
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- Meanwhile, opposition leader MK Yossi Sarid (Meretz)
called on the government to honor the understandings reached with the Palestinians
and to begin lifting the closures and sieges imposed on Palestinian areas.
Sarid said the large number of Palestinian fatalities and injuries at the
weekend was evidence that the government was not making a 100-percent effort
to uphold the truce.
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- "Perhaps the two sides aren't all that interested
in the cease-fire because when the rifles begin to thunder, the internal
criticism falls silent," Sarid said, adding that all the efforts of
Peres would fail as long as Sharon and Defense Minister Benjamin (Fuad)
Ben-Eliezer were managing the government's policies. "Each time Peres
makes progress, Sharon and Fuad will make sure to pull him back,"
he said.
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