Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs met Wednesday night for the first time since last week's attack near the settlement of Emmanuel that prompted the Israeli cabinet to declare Yasser Arafat “irrelevant”.
The meeting was the first to take place since US envoy Anthony Zinni left the region on Friday. Three security meetings took place in the week before Zinni left, with no progress reported.
According to the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz daily, last night meeting lasted more than three hours, and was attended by a CIA official. Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, West Bank intelligence chief Tawfiq Tirawi and Avi Dichter, head of Israel's Shin Beth internal security service took part in the meeting. Another prominent participant Palestinian West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub commented following the meeting it had failed.
Talking to the Palestinian radio, Rajoub said "the meeting was not fruitful and there were no results. We asked the Israeli side to withdraw from Palestinian-controlled land, but they said they would only withdraw from one town at a time and only after complete quiet in the town." Rajoub added "we rejected this idea."
Hamas
A “senior Hamas official” was quoted Wednesday evening by Agence France Presse as saying that the Islamic organization would cease all suicide attacks on Israeli targets. According to this report, the official stated that Hamas had reached an internal decision to stop the attacks, and thus would not make an official announcement.
However, a few hours later, a senior spokesman of the organization, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, denied the report that there would be an end to suicide attacks in Israel. The Hamas spokesman in the West Bank, Hassan Yussuf, commented he could neither confirm nor deny the report. Hamas will do whatever is "in the best interest of the Palestinian people," he said. Asked whether that would mean an end of the suicide attacks, he said one "has to read between the lines." In addition, an anonymous “senior Hamas official” told last night the organization web site that “Hamas has not changed its stands”. As long as the occupation persists, we will continue our resistance”, he was quoted as saying. (Albawaba.com)
Three Shot as Palestinian Police Seek to Arrest Hamas Leader
Palestinian police shot three people in Gaza early Thursday in clashes with hundreds of protesters who prevented them from arresting a senior leader of the Islamic Hamas group, witnesses said.
Police closed off the streets around the home of senior political leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi in Gaza City as 300-400 protesters, some armed, formed a barrier between the officers and the house.
A tense stand-off ensued overnight after the violence had subsided.
Al-Rantissi told AFP by phone: "I am refusing to be arrested by order of the CIA and the Israeli (secret service) Mossad. There was a security meeting and then they came to arrest me.
"I think they will make me a target for apache missiles," he added, referring to previous Israeli attacks on Palestinian activists.
Al-Rantissi's phone line went dead soon afterwards.
Amid bursts of machinegun fire, including warning shots in the air from both sides, hundreds of police in full riot gear retreated from the house to face the angry crowd on an adjacent street, regrouping three times throughout the rainy night.
Police shot one protester in the left leg. Demonstrators said he was slightly wounded. He was propped onto the hood of a car with protesters deciding not to take him to a hospital for fear of arrest.
A quarter of an hour later, two more people were shot by police and taken to the hospital by ambulance, demonstrators said.
When AFP managed to regain contact with the leader, he said: "I am sitting in my house with my family and they are looking at the crimes of the Palestinian police."
A nearby mosque called on locals, via loudspeaker, to awake and swarm around the house to protect the leader of the radical militant group.
One of the protesters, Ahmed Abas, 44, kissed the air praising al-Rantissi as a holy warrior, and said, "we were happier before the Palestinian Authority came in 1994".
A 20-year-old who refused to be named, explained what Abas meant: "When you fight your enemy it's fine. It's different when you are fighting your Muslim brother, but the police are unbelievers."
Following a call by Washington, the Palestinian Authority had earlier tried to arrest another key Hamas leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the movement. Police backed down after they clashed with hundreds of protesters on December 5.
One Hamas supporter died from injuries received in those clashes.
Al-Rantissi has been wanted by the Palestinian Authority since US President George W. Bush demanded Arafat make good on pledges to arrest hardliners on December 5.
The pediatrician and lecturer at the Islamic University in Gaza City, is one of the founding members of the Hamas movement, formed in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which he was also a member.
He has been jailed four times by the Palestinian Authority, being held for a total of 27 months.
Arafat has been cracking down on Hamas -- arresting activists and shutting offices, schools and other institutions linked to the movement -- under intense international pressure to halt the violence. (AFP, Gaza)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
