Israel’s Meretz party Chairman Yossi Sarid has called for the immediate evacuation of Jewish settlers from Hebron, reported Haaretz on Friday.
“People that bite the hand that protects them, the hand of police officers and soldiers, cannot be considered balanced or normal people. Whoever does not evacuate the Jews from there is bringing danger on himself, not just in the territories but in the entire region,” Sarid said in comment of clashes between the settlers and Israeli police who tried to prevent them Friday from attacking Palestinians in the West Bank city.
Settlers have torched shops and attacked people in Abu Snaina neighborhood, which overlooks the settlement enclave where 400 Jews live. The latest attacks by the army and the settlers came in retaliation of killing a 10-month baby girl, reportedly bu a Palestinian sniper, who injured her father.
According to Haaretz, the settlers claimed that the confrontations between Jews and members of the Israeli security service were the result of excessive force displayed by the special police unit in Hebron.
Earlier, the paper quoted Israeli President Moshe Katsav as condemning “a small group of Jews in Hebron” for hurting Arabs and Israeli security forces. Haaretz quoted an Israel Radio report as saying Katsav called on this group to stop their actions and to leave matters of security to the security forces.
A police officer suffered a concussion Thursday night following a confrontation with settlers who had attempted to damage a solar-powered boiler belonging to an Arab home. Tens of settlers engaged in a confrontation with police officers.
Police commander for the West Bank, Major-General Shahar Ayalon, said that the police would indict those that had been unruly in Hebron. Ayalon stressed that most of those involved were not residents of Hebron.
In a related development, The Jerusalem Post reported the same day that Palestinian gunmen fired shots at an Israeli vehicle on the Jericho bypass road, Damage was caused to the vehicle but there were no casualties.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat vowed Thursday that the six-month-old Intifada against Israel would continue until there is a Palestinian state, while Israel threatened to ratchet up its military response to Palestinian violence, reported AFP.
In Washington, President George Bush singled out Arafat for not doing enough to promote Middle East peace, demanding that Israel and the Palestinians both take immediate steps to quell mounting violence.
"The days of restraint are over," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted Thursday as saying after Israeli helicopter gunships pounded bases of Arafat's elite bodyguard, Force 17, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip a day earlier.
The first military action by Sharon's three-week old government drew a furious reaction from the Palestinians, who accused Israel of escalating the situation, and US appeals for restraint.
Bush said Thursday "the tragic cycle of incitement, provocation and violence has gone on far too long," and called on both sides to "take important steps to calm the situation now.
"Our goal is to encourage a series of reciprocal and parallel steps by both sides that will halt the escalation of violence, provide safety and security for civilans on both sides, and restore normalcy to the lives of everyone in the region," Bush told a White House press conference.
"The signal I'm sending to the Palestinians is stop the violence ... I hope Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear," he said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell later called Arafat to convey Bush's message, a spokesman said.
Bush said he was deeply concerned about mounting tensions after Israel's Wednesday air strikes in retaliation for anti-Israel bombing attacks, and said Sharon also had a part to play.
"The government of Israel ... should exercise restraint in its military response, it should take steps to restore normalcy to the lives of the Palestinian people by easing closures and removing checkpoints," Bush said.
Bush, who has taken a more hands-off approach to Middle East peace than did his predecessor, Bill Clinton, defended his strategy and indicated he was making a diplomatic push to bring the parties back to the negotiating table.
He said that in meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak next week and Jordan's King Abdullah II the week after he would "seek their help in defusing the tensions."
He said he hoped the two Arab leaders would try to convince Arafat to speak out to his people against violence and strongly suggested Arafat would not be invited to the White House until he acts.
Bush noted that he and other officials have urged Sharon, who visited Bush at the White House last week, to ease economic pressure on the Palestinians.
For his part, Arafat pledged that the uprising would not cease "until the Palestinian flag flies over Jerusalem, capital of the future Palestinian state.
"I tell you that not the blockade, not the uranium shells, not the other banned weapons, not the bombings of our bases and houses can hinder our people's determination," Arafat said Thursday.
And a Palestinian official threatened attacks inside Israel if the army took action inside Palestinian cities.
"Every point in Israel will become a legitimate target for our fighters if Israel attacks our cities," said Ahmed Helis, secretary general of Arafat's Fatah faction, in Gaza City.
On Friday, the European Union appealed Friday for both Israel and the Palestinians to show "maximum restraint,” as Palestinians prepared to demonstrate at the end of a week of bloody clashes between the two sides, reported AFP.
"The European Union calls on both parties to act with maximum restraint, restore calm and do their utmost to prevent actions resulting in new victims," said the statement released by Sweden, which currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency.
"Furthermore, it calls upon both parties to refrain from any unilateral action that may generate more violence and aggravate the crisis."
Meanwhile, Palestinian movements called for a strike on Friday and a demonstration the following day in Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem for Land Day, which is commemorated each year.
Land Day recalls the March 30, 1976 death of six Israeli Arabs, killed in northern Israel during protests over the seizure of Arab lands, and has traditionally been marked by demonstrations.
The National Islamic Forces, which group 14 Palestinian movements including Arafat's Fateh faction, called for east Jerusalem residents to go on a general strike Friday.
It said they should head to the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest site, to pray.
The statement also called for the organization of "a peaceful demonstration Saturday towards the Ras al-Amud road-block", in order to "breach the blockade imposed on (east) Jerusalem, occupied since 1967.
The Ras al-Amud road block is located between the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
A senior Arab Israeli urged restraint Friday.
"We call for calm, and hope that legitimate demonstrations take place with dignity and without incidents with the police," said Mohammed Zeidan, chairman of the Arab Supreme National Monitoring Committee.
Marches and rallies are also planned in the northern Israeli towns of Sakhnin, Araba, Um el-Fahm and Kafr Kana.
Gatherings are also planned to be held in the Negev desert, in southern Israel, where 5,000 olive trees are to be planted.
Up to Friday noon, Israeli Arabs were celebrating Land Day in various places inside the Green Line separating the West Bank from Israel with no violent incidents.
In Kafr Kana in the Galilee, hundreds of people were participating in the Land Day ceremony without incident, said The Jerusalem Post.
They were waving Palestinian Liberation Organization flags, pictures of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel-Nasser, and directing derisive chants at Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and Israeli policy toward Israeli Arabs, Army Radio reported, quoted by the Post.
In the Negev, a protest caravan of hundreds of Bedouin from Rahat has arrived at an area north of Beersheba.
Some of the cars were carrying black flags, which the participants said express mourning over the expropriation of land by Israel.
The main Land Day ceremony is expected to take place in Sakhnin in the Galilee this afternoon, said the paper – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
