- OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (IslamOnline.net
& News Agencies) -- While four Palestinians, including a 9-year-old
boy, were killed by Israeli gunfire overnight, the Israeli government announced
Thursday, November 27, plans to legalize several settlements in the West
Bank.
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- Three Palestinians were shot dead when Israeli occupation
forces opened fire on a civilian vehicle in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, November
26, Palestinian security sources told IslamOnline.net.
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- The Israeli army admitted that the slain Palestinians
were unarmed, backtracking on an earlier statement claiming they were gunmen
planning attacks against Israeli targets in the area, reported Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
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- Relatives of the Palestinian martyrs were quoted by the
Israeli daily Haaretz as saying that the three cousins were shot as they
drove to celebrations for Eid Al-Fitr holiday in the central Gaza Strip.
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- Earlier Wednesday, Palestinian sources reported that
nine-year-old Palestinian boy Hani Raba'iyah was gunned down by Israeli
forces in a fresh incursion into the Rafah refugee camp in the southern
Gaza Strip.
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- The boy was killed when Israeli troops opened fire at
targets adjacent to the camp, located on the Egyptian border.
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- In the meantime, a Palestinian boy was killed of wounds
inflicted by Israeli soldiers in southern Al-Khalil in the West Bank, Al-Jazeera
reported.
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- The latest deaths raised to 3,626 the number of people
killed since the September 2000 outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada against
Israeli occupation, including 2,704 Palestinians and 854 Israelis, according
to an AFP count.
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- Settlements 'Legalized'
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- In another development, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister
Zeev Boim told the Israeli army radio Thursday that the process of authorizing
several Jewish settlement outposts in the West Bank was almost complete,
despite earlier assurances given by his government to the U.S.
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- "Illegal settlement outposts were created over the
past three years and the procedure engaged for their legalization are about
to be completed," AFP quoted Boim as telling the broadcast.
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- "I am saying that some of them are towns, that the
process of legalizing them is near the end, and this is the difference,"
he argued.
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- Boim did not specify the number of outposts in the process
of being "legalized" but said they could not be dismantled because
"they were built on state land and not on private land".
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- The move is another nip in the bud of the internationally-sponsored
roadmap, as it is a clear violation of its calls to freeze settlement activity
and dismantle all Jewish outposts established since Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon came to power in March 2001.
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- Upon officially adhering to the U.S.-backed roadmap at
a summit in Jordan last June, Sharon pledged in principle to dismantle
all settlements built since he became prime minister.
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- However, human rights groups say very few of the outposts
have been dismantled, and those that have were quickly re-established.
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- Sharon granted on October 27, "<http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-10/27/article05.shtml>permanent
settlement" status to a number of illegal outposts in the West Bank,
a move denounced as "blatant" by an Israeli peace activist, a
few days after his government <http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-10/02/article09.shtml>announced
a tender to expand settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
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- A spokesman for the Israeli Peace Now Movement said Boim's
statements prove that Sharon government is collaborating with the Jewish
settlers, and has no intention of removing settlements.
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- The anti-settlement group registered 103 settlement outposts
in the West Bank, including 56 which sprung up since March 2001.
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- All Israeli settlements constructed in the occupied Palestinian
territories, whether authorized by Israel or not, are deemed illegal by
international law and U.N. resolutions.
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- Annoying U.S.
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- Israelâs move to authorize the settlement outposts
is likely to further anger its U.S. ally, which has repeatedly voiced annoyance
at Sharon's settlement policy, Haaretz expected.
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- But many Arab observers feel Washington does not act
firmly enough to force Israel stop such provocations.
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- Washington Wednesday deducted almost 300 million dollars
from nine billion dollars worth of <http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-11/26/article01.shtml>loan
guarantees, equivalent to the sums being spent on settlement building and
those parts of the separation wall Israel is constructing in the West Bank.
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