Israeli police on Saturday violently dispersed a Palestinian protest in front of Orient House, the symbol of Palestinian presence in occupied east Jerusalem, which the Jewish state seized following a suicide bombing last week, said reports.
Around 100 protestors attempted to approach the building, which is protected by police barricades, but were driven back, AFP said.
Before the attempt, the protestors chanted nationalistic slogans.
"Orient House will remain a (Palestinian) fortress and witness to Israeli terrorism," read a banner carried by the demonstrators.
The United States and other nations voiced their protest at Israel's takeover of the unofficial Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters, warning the move would lead to further conflict.
Also on Saturday, two Palestinians died of their injuries in the Gaza Strip.
The two died from their wounds after Israeli soldiers shot them during clashes near the Muntar crossing point (known to Israelis as Karni), medical sources told the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
They died shortly after midnight Saturday at the Shifa Hospital, said its emergency services director, Muayya Hussein.
Maher Afaneh, 27, was shot in the chest, while Mohammed Al Saqqa was shot in various parts of his body, WAFA said.
According to AFP estimates, the death toll since the Intifada began 10 months ago now stands at 714, of which 547 are Palestinians and 146 Israelis.
Israel's Friday takeover in east Jerusalem of Orient House was in response to a devastating Palestinian suicide bombing a day earlier.
The move sparked immediate warnings of Palestinian reprisals.
The Palestinian leadership said in a statement that the "savage occupation will not pass" without a reaction, and called on Israel to "understand the danger of this crime before it is too late.
"This attack will not lead to security and stability," said the leadership.
The Palestinian Authority said the occupation signified Israel's renuciation of all peace agreements between the two sides, and it condemned other Israeli retaliatory strikes.
"The occupation of Orient House and the attacks upon other localities nearby Jerusalem is the equivalent of a unilateral renunciation of all agreements," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's advisor, Nabil Abu Rudeina, told AFP.
Another Palestinian official, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaath said Saturday in an interview on Voice of Palestine Radio that the Israeli occupation of Orient House was a “gross violation of a written Israeli commitment delivered to the Norwegian foreign minister in 1993.”
“Because the Oslo Accords stipulated that discussions on five principal subjects, including Jerusalem, be postponed until final status talks, the Palestinians demanded a commitment that Israel would not harm Palestinian establishments in east Jerusalem,” he was quoted by Haaretz as saying.
“The Palestinian representatives were not satisfied with a verbal agreement, so Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signed a letter, written by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which promised that the Palestinian establishments (including religious, economic and cultural buildings) would be allowed to develop,” he added.
Shaath added that the letter was sent to Norway and that the Norwegian foreign minister personally traveled to Tunis and delivered the letter to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. "We wouldn't have signed the Oslo Accords without that letter," Shaath said.
He conceded that Orient House was not explicitly stated in the letter, but that the verbal agreement said the establishment was not to be touched.
Earlier in the day, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from the building.
The US also condemned the takeover and the seizure of a Palestinian Authority security office in Abu Dis on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem.
The US State Department said that Israel's seizure of the Orient House and Abu Dis lands damaged the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to Haaretz newspaper, the US administration asked Israel how long it intended to maintain control over Orient House, during a meeting between Danny Ayalon, foreign policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Middle East envoy William Burns.
The official answer it received from Israel was that "Israel acted according to agreements it had signed with the Palestinians."
Israeli sources told the paper that "despite the moderate criticism on the Israeli attacks late Thursday, the United States is content that Israel avoided a harsh military response and made due with a political action."
Ayalon told the US administration the actions Israel undertook following the suicide bombing Thursday in west Jerusalem, which killed 15 people, were "legal and came after the Palestinians violated the agreement with Israel."
"We gave Arafat all the information on the people involved in terror attacks but he did not act against them and therefore we had to take action," Ayalon said. He claimed that the actions against the Palestinian Authority were planned so as not to cause casualties on the Palestinian side.
Earlier, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State Colin Powell had spoken Friday with Sharon to raise US criticism of the occupation of Orient House and the raid on Abu Dis.
It was the second telephone call between Powell and Sharon in two days, AFP said.
For his part, US President George W. Bush said Friday that the mounting conflict in the Middle East "frustrated" him, and declared that Arafat must "do a better job in curbing violence."
In an interview with ABC television, Bush said "Mr. Arafat can do a better job. I am deeply concerned that some of the more radical groups are beginning to affect his ability and obviously are provocative as heck toward the Israelis."
Saudi Arabia on Saturday also condemned Israel's seizure of Orient House, which had become the symbolic cornerstone of Palestinian political presence in east Jerusalem.
"The acts of the Israeli forces of occupation, the latest being the abominable occupation of Orient House, symbol of Palestinian sovereignty in east Jerusalem, represent an escalation that the region cannot tolerate," an official spokesman said, cited by AFP.
"The government and people of Saudi Arabia condemn and detest this act and hold Israel responsible for the consequences.
The United States was joined by Russia and European nations in demanding that Israel and the Palestinians seek reconciliation and negotiations.
Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries officially at peace with Israel, also blasted the Jewish state's reprisal for the suicide bomb attack, which both states had also strongly condemned.
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, AFP estimates that Palestinians have killed 146 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to AFP, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 547 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to an Amnesty International report issued early this year, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children. In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
