The Palestinians accused Israel on Wednesday of using force of unprecedented brutality to crack down on demonstrators clashing with Israeli forces across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The force Israel has used against the Palestinians shows a brutality never witnessed before, with live ammunition, rockets and helicopters," Palestinian legislative council speaker Ahmed Qorei said.
He was speaking at a special session of the council to discuss the deadly violence that has swept the Palestinian territories over the past week and spilled into Israel itself, costing the lives of 65 people and injuring around 1,500.
Israel has responding to the spiral of violence with increasing firepower, using combat helicopters, tanks and missiles against Palestinians armed with rocks, Molotov cocktails and sometimes assault rifles.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, secretary to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, accused Israel of deliberately stoking the violence, which was set off by a visit Thursday to a disputed site in Jerusalem holy to both Jews and Muslims by Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon.
"The riots were planned by the Israeli government in order to achieve specific political goals. They want to impose on us with military methods what we have refused in the political talks in Camp David and New York," he told the session.
The US-hosted Camp David summit broke down in July without an agreement because of deep discord over the fate of the Jerusalem shrine known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount.
The site lies inside the walled Old City of east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in war 33 years ago and annexed as part of its "eternal, divided capital."
The two sides missed a September 13 deadline for a peace accord that must also settle the fate of several million Palestinian refugees, final borders of a future Palestinian entity, Jewish settlements and water and security issues -- RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP)
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