Yehiyeh Urges Israel Attacks to Stop

23/08/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: Bloodshed & Detentions Continue in the West Bank||U.N. Says Israel to Ease Restrictions ||Israel's National Council Recommends Borders with Palestine Be Determined Quickly with or Without Palestinian Consent||Ex-Jerusalem Mayor Wants City Split between Israelis & Palestinians||Sharon Postpones Trip to U.S. || STORY: The Palestinian Authority's security chief met with 12 rival Palestinian factions Thursday in a new effort to build a united front and get Resistance groups to stop bombing and shooting attacks in Israel.

But the meeting ended with no apparent progress, and the Resistance group Hamas reiterated its opposition to a cease-fire.

Security chief Abdel Razel Yehiyeh left after three hours, refusing to talk with reporters. Other participants said the meeting had been tense and no agreement was reached.

Yehiyeh is trying to get the armed Resistance to accept a common Palestinian manifesto that could form the basis of peace negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian talks broke down earlier this month after Hamas and Islamic Jihad vetoed clauses calling for an end to attacks within Israel and implying recognition of Israel.

The original draft called for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, meaning acceptance of Israel within the borders preceding its occupation of those territories in the 1967 Mideast War.

A Hamas delegate to the new round of talks in Gaza City said before the meeting his group remained adamant in its objection to that plan and in its demand that all of historic Palestine should be in Arab hands.

Bloodshed & Detentions Continue in the West Bank

In the village of Saida in the northern West Bank, a 55-year-old Palestinian woman was killed and her son was wounded Thursday when a bomb exploded at the chicken farm where they were working, Palestinian security officials said.

The farm belonged to an Islamic Jihad fugitive, Ahmed Yassin, 30, the officials said. The fugitive is not related to the Hamas leader by the same name.

No further details were immediately available on the circumstances surrounding the explosion.

Also in the northern West Bank, Israeli occupation troops arrested Mohammed Wajeh Quoa, 41, the Hamas leader in the town of Qalqiliya, Palestinian officials said. Quoa had been arrested repeatedly by Israel in the past and in 1992 was deported to south Lebanon for one year, along with 400 other Resistance activists.

In the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli troops at the Rafah crossing to Egypt arrested a Palestinian wanted by security forces.

U.N.: Israel to Ease Restrictions

In New York, a U.N. official said that Israel has agreed to ease some restrictions on Palestinian areas, allowing greater access to medical aid and farm jobs.

The Israeli government had also agreed to give the U.N. refugee agency more freedom of movement in Palestinian areas, said Catherine Bertini, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's personal humanitarian envoy.

Bertini was sent to the region last week to assess the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians, and met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian officials.

The Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza has made it tough for people to work, seek medical aid, farm or obtain other basic services, Bertini said.

"There is no disagreement about what we found by any side. There is a very serious humanitarian situation for the people living in Gaza and the West Bank," Bertini said.

Israel's National Council Recommends Borders with Palestine Be Determined Quickly with or Without Palestinian Consent

Israel's National Security Council has recommended that the country's borders with the Palestinians be determined quickly - with or without Palestinian input in peace talks - to improve the security situation.

In a report published Thursday in the Israeli press, the council said the borders should be set so as to keep most of the Palestinian population outside Israel. That would make it easier to protect Israelis from attacks, it said.

The report was submitted to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday but his aides told Israel media that he was not planning to adopt its recommendations and would not bring it to the Cabinet for a debate.

Ex-Jerusalem Mayor Wants City Split

In Jerusalem, the longtime mayor of the city, Teddy Kollek, said Thursday that the Palestinians should be given control over some parts of the city, including disputed holy sites in the Old City.

Kollek spoke a day after Israeli security announced that it had arrested four Arabs from east Jerusalem for allegedly committing attacks against Israelis that killed 35 people, including five Americans.

The news of the arrests came as a surprise to many Israelis since east Jerusalem Arabs - who are Palestinians, but have Israeli residency rights - have been relatively inactive in the past two years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

In reaction to the discovery of the militant cell, Kollek said Israel's control over east Jerusalem was slipping. Israel captured the section of the city in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it to its capital.

Kollek said the 200,000 Arabs living in east Jerusalem should not be under Israel's jurisdiction. The former mayor said that he agreed with a proposal by former President Clinton in 2000 peace talks that Israel relinquish sovereignty over a disputed holy site in east Jerusalem's Old City, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary, or Haram as-Sharif, to Muslims.

"Listen, they (the Palestinians) have been sitting there for so many years and feel that it is theirs," said Kollek, who served as mayor from 1965-1993. "You can't achieve calm if you don't give them part of what they want and can control. There's no solution without this."

Sharon Postpones Trip to U.S.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has meanwhile postponed his trip to the United States set for next month.

Sharon was to visit Flodrida on Sept. 9, the day before a primary election for the Democratic candidate for governor. Some Democrats said Sharon's presence would give a boost to incumbent Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother.

The Bush administration has been exceptionally friendly to Sharon's government during fighting with the Palestinians, and some Israelis active in American political parties assumed that Sharon's visit would help Gov. Bush in his re-election bid.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian Resistance men affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) participate in the funerals of Ayman Zerob, 15, and Adnan Brais, 24, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip Wednesday Aug. 21, 2002. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma)