- (AFP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said US
President George W. Bush's support for his controversial disengagement
plan was the most serious blow to the Palestinian cause since the creation
of the Jewish state.
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- While Sharon was telling parliament that Bush's endorsement
for his planned pullout from the Gaza Strip was an unprecedented diplomatic
coup, the cycle of Israeli-Palestinian violence claimed another four lives
in the occupied territories.
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- "It's an unprecedented success. Since the creation
of our state we have never obtained support equivalent to that expressed
by President Bush," he told MPs on Thursday.
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- "The Palestinians understand that written commitments
(by Bush) are the most serious blow that they have suffered since our declaration
of independence" in 1948, the premier added.
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- Bush gave his enthusiastic endorsement to Sharon's plan
to withdraw from the Gaza Strip but keep hold of most the West Bank settlements
in a summit at the White House last week.
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- He further angered the Palestinians by effectively ruling
out the right of those who were left homeless in 1948 to return to what
is now Israel, instead saying their "right of return" would be
limited to within the borders of a future Palestinian state.
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- The 200,000 members of Sharon's Likud party will vote
on the plan in a referendum on May 2.
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- A poll published Thursday found a narrow majority of
Likud members in favour of the plan.
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- Forty-four percent of those surveyed in a poll for the
Haaretz daily said they vote in support of the plan while another 40 percent
said they would vote no. The rest were either undecided or refused to respond.
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- Right-wing Israeli opponents of the project have argued
that unilateral moves such as the pullout from Gaza would be interpreted
as a sign of weakness by Palestinian militant groups, but there has been
little sign of a let-up in the campaign against hardliners.
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- Fourteen Palestinians have been killed in the Beit Lahiya
area of the northern Gaza Strip since Tuesday in an operation the Israelis
say is designed to put a halt to rocket attacks on Jewish settlements and
southern Israel.
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- The latest victim, 16-year-old Mohammed al-Malfuh, was
killed on Thursday morning during clashes between stone-throwing youths
and troops who were pulling out of the area, medics and witnesses said.
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- Three local leaders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,
a radical faction loyal to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, were also
killed at daybreak Thursday in a clash with Israeli troops in the northern
West Bank town of Tulkarem.
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- The shoot-out occurred after 20 Israeli armored vehicles
including tanks surrounded the house in the town of Tulkarem where the
three were holed up, Palestinian security sources said.
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- An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that "three
Tanzim (Israel's name for armed groups linked to Fatah) terrorists were
killed during an exchange of fire with Israeli soldiers at dawn at Nur
el-Chams refugee camp at Tulkarem."
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- Some 10,000 Palestinians attended the funeral for the
three men in Tulkarem as the town's shops and schools closed for the day.
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- Militant leaders vowed to wreak revenge against the Israeli
army over the attack which the local governor, Ezzedine Sharif, blamed
on collaborators.
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- "There are some people who have been working with
the Israelis and they are responsible for what has happened today."
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- An Al-Aqsa leader meanwhile accused Arafat of expelling
a group of 21 members of the faction from his West Bank headquarters overnight.
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- "Yasser Arafat forced me and 20 of my comrades from
the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to leave the Muqataa," Ali Barghuti,
one of the leaders of the organisation in the West Bank, told AFP.
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- "Arafat has abandoned us. It's a crime, because
we are above all members of Fatah and he should protect us."
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- Arafat refused to comment directly on the allegation,
telling reporters in Ramallah that "there is only one wanted man here.
He was wounded during the last Israeli incursion", in September 2002.
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- The militants, who are all believed to be wanted by Israel,
had taken refuge in the headquarters in the city of Ramallah, known as
the Muqataa, for more than three years.
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