Zionist Troops Arrest Islamic Jihad Member

17/08/2003| IslamWeb

The Israeli army on Sunday arrested one Palestinian in Qalqilya, one of four West Bank cities to be handed over to Palestinian security control to bolster a cease-fire underpinning a new peace plan. Palestinian security sources said Azem Nazzel of Islamic Jihad, among groups that have led a 34-month-old intifadha in the occupied Palestine, was arrested in a bloodless swoop in Qalqilya overnight. The Zionist army confirmed the capture. **Zionist State Rejects Palestinian Refugees to Return*** A new dispute erupted yesterday over the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, with the Zionist state categorically rejecting a Palestinian claim the prospect was guaranteed in a US-backed peace plan. Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the contention by Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath was false and unhelpful. He reiterated that Israel would never let the refugees back in under any conditions. The right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees is one of the most emotional and sensitive issues for both sides, and has been a major impediment to decades of efforts to achieve a final Middle East peace. Shaath said on Friday in Beirut that the right was an integral part of an Arab peace initiative used as a reference point in the international peace "road map" promoted by Washington. "The road map says absolutely nothing about the (refugees') right of return and this statement is detrimental" to implementation of the road map, said Pazner. "Israel has no intention, under any circumstance and within any framework, of accepting the return of refugees in Israeli cities which Shaath terms Palestinian cities," he added. "The (refugee) Palestinians, if they want, can return to their future state," he said, referring to the ultimate goal of the road map drafted by the US, Russia, UN and the European Union. However, Shaath had a different view. "I want to be clear: this right includes returning to an independent state and to Palestinian cities in the Jewish state. Whether a person returns to Haifa (Israel) or to Nablus (West Bank), their return is guaranteed. "No condition has been set for a return (only) to an independent Palestinian state. The right of return is no longer an illusion," Shaath said. He said the right was included in the peace initiative adopted unanimously by an Arab summit in Beirut last year and used as a basis for the road map, which he called the Palestinians' best hope since the 1967 war. The debate concerns an estimated four million Palestinians who fled or were chased from their homes after the state of Israel was born in 1948, and their descendants. Most live in the Palestinian territories or Jordan. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Zionist soldier stands after a gun battle with Palestinians in the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus Friday Aug. 8, 2003. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)