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November 2002 News http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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Israeli army admits troops killed UN official Khaleej Times, 11/24/02 JERUSALEM - The Israeli army admitted its forces killed a UN official, saying they mistook an object he was holding in his hand for a gun during a heated battle with Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp. Israel's forces on Sunday also kept their grip tight on Bethlehem, reoccupied on Friday and placed under curfew after a Palestinian suicide bombing killed 11 people on a Jerusalem bus. The army said it had detained three would-be suicide bombers and another 28 wanted Palestinians in Bethlehem since the start of the operation in the West Bank city. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared unlikely to order any relaxation of the clampdown in Bethlehem ahead of a leadership election on Thursday in his extremist right-wing Likud party, where he is being challenged by hawkish Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iain Hook, manager of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), was killed during a gun battle on Friday which erupted near the agency compound during an Israeli raid to arrest a Palestinian activist in the Jenin camp. Israeli radio stations said the 54-year-old Briton was holding a mobile telephone in his hand as he moved through the open-air compound. A UNRWA spokesman said Hook was trying to evacuate his staff and nearby civilians to safety. "He had been making requests with the Israelis to call a ceasefire to allow our staff and some vulnerable civilians living nearby to be evacuated," said the spokesman, Paul McCann. McCann said the agency's own initial inquiry found that "the Israeli report of firing from the compound is totally incredible". He said an investigator would arrive from New York on Sunday to begin a UN investigation into the incident. The United Nations has accused Israeli forces of delaying an ambulance summoned to evacuate Hook. The army said a military ambulance was sent to the Briton's aid but that when it arrived he was already dead.
14 die in fresh surge of violence in Kashmir Khaleej Times, 11/24/02
SRINAGAR - Three security men were among 14 killed in overnight clashes in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Sunday in a fresh surge of militant-linked violence belying the promised healing touch by the region's new leader. Suspected militants overnight shot dead two policemen in two busy markets of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir. Another policeman was injured in the attacks and was being treated in Srinagar's main hospital, police said. In Anantnag township, 50 kilometers south of Srinagar, security forces shot dead a deranged man they had mistaken for a militant, police added. In the neighbouring Tral area of the southern Pulwama district, gunmen shot dead an employee of Kashmir's main jail, police said. Suspected militants also shot dead a man and a woman in the village near Tral township late Saturday, police said. Police said the victims were labelled "security informers" by the militants. Suspected rebels also killed a Muslim shopkeeper Abdul Aziz in downtown Srinagar, police said. A security force officer and a militant were killed in overnight clashes in northern Kupwara district, which borders Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Indian troops shot dead two militants in a fierce gunbattle in the Poonch district near the de facto border dividing India and Pakistan. Three more people died elsewhere in Kashmir, police said, but did not give details. - AFP
Israelis unleash new offensive
after bombers attack naval boat GAZA CITY, 24 November 2002 — Israel pressed its offensive in the
occupied territories yesterday rounding up around 40 Palestinians after an
attack on an Israeli patrol boat left four sailors wounded. The Islamic Jihad group said two of its members died when they blew up
a tiny fishing vessel alongside an Israeli naval patrol boat off the Gaza
coast. Early yesterday, Jamal Ismail, 21, from the Maghazi refugee camp in
southern Gaza, and Mohammad Al-Masri, 19, from the northern town of Beit
Hanun, blew themselves up alongside an Israeli navy vessel, a high-ranking
member of Jihad told AFP on condition of anonymity. “The two martyr members of the Al-Quds Brigades (Islamic Jihad’s
armed wing) blew up their boat near a Zionist boat off the northern Gaza
coastline,” the official said. The Israeli military said four sailors had been wounded in the attack,
which occurred near the Jewish settlement of Dugit. It said the fishing boat had been spotted moving toward Israeli waters,
which are banned to Palestinian vessels. The Dabour, a small naval patrol
boat, was sent to the area to investigate. As it approached, sailors identified two “suspicious figures” on
the boat and, “after several attempts to make contact, water was sprayed
at the boat to force it out of the banned area. “That had no effect. The patrol boat fired warning shots and after
several minutes there was an explosion,” the statement said. The statement did not say whether the Israeli shots had hit the boat or
what happened to the two men on board. Following the explosion, the army slapped a ban on all boat traffic
along the Gaza Strip’s coast. Meanwhile, the army entered the town of Qubatiyeh near Jenin searching
for wanted Palestinians and demolished four homes in Bethlehem and the
surrounding area, according to the army and an AFP correspondent. In the village of Tekoa, the army demolished the home of Ryad Al-Amor,
the head of the local armed wing of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, who
was jailed by Israel for a series of attacks that left six people dead
last spring. The military also demolished the Bethlehem home of Ibrahim Mussa Abayat,
the local head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Fatah. Israel expelled Abayat to Cyprus in May along with 12 other
Palestinians as part of a deal to end a grueling siege of Bethlehem’s
Church of the Nativity, where Palestinians were trapped by Israeli
soldiers for more than a month. In the village of Al-Khader, the army demolished the home of Walid Sbeh,
whom Israel accused of shooting attacks and helping prepare bombings.
Israel Eyes Up to $10B in U.S. Aid
By Dan Perry JERUSALEM –– Israel will ask the United States for loan guarantees aimed at jump-strating its economy which has been damaged by two years of violence and the request will total between $8 billion and $10 billion, a senior government official said Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the Finance and Defense ministries are finalizing the request and would forward it to the United States in the coming days. The request for guarantees on foreign bank loans would be in addition to the $2.9 billion in direct loans and grants that Israel receives annually from the United States, the official said. Israel, which receives the largest U.S. aid package of any country, relies on the loan guarantees to borrow at lower interest rates. There is no cost to the United States if Israel repays the loans and Israel has never defaulted on a loan, the official said. A State Department spokesman, Philip T. Reeker, said the United States has not yet received the request and declined to comment. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, campaigning for re-election, asked President Bush for $10 billion in loan guarantees at a White House meeting last month, according to Jane's Foreign Report. Bush, following the Oct. 16 meeting, said "terror has affected the Israeli economy," but made no specific mention of further loan guarantees. "We've got great confidence in the Israeli economy, because we've got great confidence in the Israeli people," Bush told reporters at the time. "I'm convinced that the economy will be strong." More specific requests were discussed when Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, met with U.S. officials in Washington several weeks ago, the official said. Israel's $100 billion economy has been battered by the violence, which has driven away tourists and investors, as well as the global economic slowdown and the crisis in the high-tech sector on which the country depends. Economic growth was above 6 percent in 2000, but has ground to a halt. More than 10 percent of the work force is unemployed and inflation has risen to about 8 percent this year. The official said the economic outlook could worsen if the United States attacks Iraq – which many fear could prompt Baghdad to fire missiles, or chemical or biological weapons, at Israel. The United States guaranteed $10 billion in loans for Israel a decade ago to help it absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Angry over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, then-President George Bush held up the guarantees until the hard-line Yitzhak Shamir was replaced as Israeli prime minister by more moderate Yitzhak Rabin, who signed an interim peace treaty with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
No ‘sleeping cells’ of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, says Prince Naif By an Arab News Staff Writer RIYADH, 24 November 2002 — There are no “sleeping cells” of the Al-Qaeda terror network in Saudi Arabia, Interior Minister Prince Naif said in remarks published yesterday. “There are no Al-Qaeda sleeping cells and no Saudi was arrested in recent days for links to the network,” Prince Naif told Al-Watan daily newspaper. He said a Saudi, Mohammed Al-Sahim, who was wounded and captured after a shootout with police on Nov. 16 was wanted for a “security-related matter” and was not linked to Al-Qaeda, according to preliminary investigations. The minister also said authorities were still trying to track down a man who set fire to a McDonald’s restaurant southeast of Riyadh last Wednesday. The assailant was using “a car with non-Saudi number plates, which police have been able to identify,” Prince Naif said. The man, armed with a pistol, walked into the restaurant in Al-Kharj and set it on fire with petrol. For his part, the prince who owns the McDonald’s franchise in the Kingdom was meanwhile quoted as saying that he planned to reopen the gutted restaurant after repairing it and that he would open an additional 10 outlets by the end of 2003. Repairs are already under way, said Prince Mishaal ibn Khaled, quoted by Okaz newspaper. Prince Mishaal said three of the 10 new restaurants he planned to open would be in Riyadh and the rest in other parts of the Kingdom, which already boasts 78 outlets of the fast-food chain. He said turnover at McDonald’s restaurants had risen by four percent during the first 10 months of 2002 compared to the same period last year, despite calls for a boycott of US products.
White
House cautions against judgment on 9/11 inquiry
U.S.
fingerprinting program expanded
The
U.S. Department of Justice on Friday announced additional countries to be
included in its fingerprinting and registration program at ports of entry
into the U.S.
Riots rage on in Nigeria, toll
hits 200 KADUNA, Nigeria, 24 November 2002 — Riots raged on in the northern
Nigerian city of Kaduna yesterday raising the death toll to 200 after a
blood bath there forced the organizers of the Miss World pageant to
abandon plans to hold the event in Nigeria. Some 90 Miss World contestants prepared to leave their hotel yesterday
to travel to London, where the contest will now be held. Fighting that erupted three days ago during protests by youths against
a blasphemous newspaper article on the beauty contest has degenerated into
a bloody street war between Muslims and Christians, witnesses said. Some 4,500 people have been driven from their homes in Kaduna by
sectarian riots, the president of the Nigerian Red Cross told AFP
yesterday. Emmanuel Ijewere said: “Obviously there have been deaths as well, but
it would be irresponsible to put a figure on casualties. We don’t want
to increase tensions. “Three hundred and twenty people are being treated in hospitals. We
have sent tents and blankets,” he added. As gunfire spread to the city’s rundown southern suburbs an AFP
journalist was forced to join around a 1,000 terrified residents who fled
their homes for refuge in the Kronenbourg brewery near the main road to
Abuja, which was protected by troops and an armored car. “We had to run for our lives. They came to my house in two cars and
tried to burn it. We really don’t know what is happening,” 20-year-old
Julie Adabo told AFP. Another woman said that a gang came to kill her after burning her home
but later spared her life. One man said he had seen his brother cut down
before him. As Adabo spoke, shooting could be heard from the Trikania district
around the plant and several buildings, including family homes, could be
seen burning. Stanley Yakubu, a local newspaper reporter, told AFP that he had seen
at least 10 bodies — three of them demonstrators shot dead by police —
in one suburb, Sabon Tasha. “The police were firing indiscriminately,”
he said. A rights group claimed that rogue troops dragged 14 men from their
homes and executed them in the street during rioting in Kaduna. Shehu Sani, head of the Civil Rights Congress, told AFP that the men
were killed during the fighting on Friday. An AFP reporter saw the 14 bodies in two separate locations in the
Karbala area of the city late Friday. They appeared to have been shot dead and burned, but the reporter could
not confirm who carried out the killings. In another part of the city AFP also met 57-year-old Bello Mijimyawa,
standing over the corpses of his two sons, aged 17 and 25. He said they had been dragged from his house by soldiers and later
found dead and burned. Miss World’s organizers announced early yesterday that they would
quit Nigeria and seek to hold the Dec. 7 ceremony, which was scheduled to
take place in the Nigerian capital Abuja, in London instead. The trouble
broke out in Kaduna on Wednesday when Muslim youths, incensed by an
article in Nigerian daily This Day, burned down a local newspaper office.
(Agencies)
Governments
urged to curb violence against women
The World Health
Organisation (WHO) yesterday urged governments to take "effective
action" to curb violence against women, saying nearly half the women
in homicidal deaths are killed by their current or former spouses or
partners.
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