Posted on 04/07/2002 4:55:27 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
NABLUS, West Bank, 7 April — Nearly 100 Palestinians were killed as Israeli troops, tanks and helicopters raided the Jenin refugee camp prompting a fierce fight. Palestinian sources said it was a massacre of Palestinians by Israelis in the refugee camp. Five Israelis were reported killed in the fight. Twelve Palestinians were killed elsewhere. Deadly battles raged through the West Bank as Israel scorned US calls to withdraw and pressed ahead with an army assault on the Palestinians. The Palestinians charged Israel was using the time before the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to “massacre” their people, and called for urgent help from world leaders to stop the onslaught. They said dozens of Palestinians were laying bloodied in the streets, cut off from ambulances by an Israeli blockade. “Every hour counts,” top negotiator Saeb Erekat said. Bush again insisted yesterday during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Texas that Israel had to withdraw “without delay” as US officials said Powell would likely arrive in Israel on Friday after a tour of other nations. Bush charged yesterday that Arafat has "failed in his leadership" by not denouncing and cracking down on anti-Israeli violence. Israel reacted coolly to Bush’s call with an official in Sharon’s office saying its forces will pull back only when they “finish the job.” The Palestinians said Powell’s trip was “doomed” if he decided not to meet with Arafat, and said no Palestinian leader would meet with him. “Sharon is using the time between now and the arrival of Powell to destroy everything,” Erekat told CNN. The Palestinians say Israel is trying to wipe out its self-rule Authority government and topple Yasser Arafat. Arab League chief Amr Moussa said Arab states would push for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. Residents of Jenin refugee camp said dozens of tanks encircled the area and helicopters fired missiles as several bulldozers destroyed houses at its eastern and western entrances. Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo earlier said at least 30 Palestinians were killed in fierce fighting and the toll could top 100. “Today is a day of massacres in Jenin. I have just learned from the director of Jenin hospital of at least 30 people killed in a small area of one of Jenin’s districts,” Abed Rabbo told Al-Jazeera television. “Other information received from inhabitants of Jenin indicates that, to their knowledge, there are more than 100 deaths until now in the camp,” Abed Rabbo added. “We are currently witnessing a massacre, similar to that of Sabra and Shatila and the same thing is happening in Nablus,” Abed Rabbo added, referring to the 1982 slaughter in two Lebanese camps that cost at least 800 lives. Over a dozen other Palestinians were confirmed dead across the West Bank on the ninth day of Israel’s military push. An Israeli and two Palestinians were killed in a shootout on the southern Gaza Strip after gunmen tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement, Palestinian and Israeli sources said. The Israeli Army moved into the village of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, situated between Jenin and Nablus, where they have also run into increasingly heavy resistance trying to consolidate their control. They also rolled into the town of Yatta, near the southern city of Hebron which is one of the two major West Bank municipalities left in Palestinian hands. The moves came despite an earlier call by Powell for an end to the military push “without delay” before he arrives in the region. Houses were blown up with dynamite, tanks and machine guns were used as Palestinian gunmen fought back in the camp that houses 11,000 people in the town of Jenin. “We are being subjected to a ground and air assault. Bulldozers are paving the way for tanks and infantry troops to move inside the camp,” said Jamal Abu Heija, a local leader of Hamas. “Scores of houses have been demolished. We cannot specify the number of victims, as we cannot reach them at this time. But for sure we have been subjected to a massacre.” “We call on all international and human rights organizations to intervene and stop this massacre,” he said. Heavy fighting overnight rocked Nablus, the largest city in the northern West Bank. Israeli helicopter gunships rained down missiles, cutting a wide swathe of destruction. “We have 10 seriously wounded people in three different parts of the city, particularly,” said Annan Attira, spokesman for the local government and coordinator of medical assistance. “The number of dead is uncertain,” he told AFP. “The problem is that the telephone network was cut and we are really out of touch with the families of the victims,” he said. Among the seven confirmed dead were four Palestinians, including an eight-year-old boy, who were killed by Israeli fire in a refugee camp, Palestinian hospital sources said. A Palestinian man was later killed by Israeli forces. Another Palestinian was shot dead in Nablus. Israeli tanks fired machine guns and tank shells at Arafat’s office yesterday, wounding four people. Arafat was not hurt. Erekat said in the afternoon yesterday that he had managed to speak to Arafat by telephone and was told that the “situation was very bad.” “The president (Arafat) told me that there was no more electricity, running water or drinking water, medicine, food or essential goods,” Erekat said, adding that there was also no fuel to run an electricity generator there. In Bethlehem, an armed standoff between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen inside the Church of the Nativity went into the fifth day. Sporadic gunfire was heard around the site but no other activity reported. Some 200 Palestinian gunmen and civilians took refuge in the church five days ago and have remained holed up inside along with 40 Franciscan monks and four nuns. Five people trapped inside the church were released. Two Greek Orthodox priests and three female employees were allowed to exit the church, the Israeli Army said. The armed wing of Hamas vowed to exact unprecedented reprisals against Israel after six of its fighters, including a top commander, were killed in an Israeli missile strike on Friday. The Israeli Army ransacked the home and arrested the son of Hassan Yussef, a top leader of Hamas in Ramallah, another official from the group said. The speaker of the Palestinian Parliament in exile, Salim Zaanoun, called on Arab countries yesterday to “break diplomatic, economic and cultural relations” with Israel. The Palestinians want Arab countries “to break diplomatic, economic and cultural relations with the occupation government in Israel and to stop all forms of normalization with it,” Zaanoun told Arab parliamentarians shortly before the start of an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said in an interview published in a French newspaper yesterday that the Israeli offensive could continue for more than another week. “I would say that its total duration, from the beginning will be in the order of two to three weeks,” Peres told Le Figaro. In another interview published in a German newspaper, Peres said the offensive would only end when the “infrastructure of terror” was destroyed and rejected criticisms by a number of European leaders about Israel’s actions. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets worldwide yesterday to angrily denounce the Israeli blitz on the West Bank in a massive but peaceful show of support for the Palestinians. The largest turnout was in Paris, where nearly 20,000 people heeded a call by labor unions and human rights groups, with other rallies around France, as well as in Bahrain, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Turkey and Uganda. In Tel Aviv, several thousand demonstrators took to the streets yesterday to protest the Israeli action in the Palestinian territories and demand an end to violence. The demonstrators marched from Rabin Square to the Defense Ministry, bearing banners demanding “stop the bloodshed” and “we must pull out of the Palestinian territories”.
Thanks for "news update" Nazir.
They are destroying the evil that hates them.
Oh, then it MUST be true.
Apparently they thought the Israelis wouldn't fight back...AND, they made the mistake of believin their Arab buddies from other countries would help them out...
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Lol. The Arab countries, excepting Jordan, don't have these relations to begin with. (Egyptians are not Arabs, although their nation is overrun with them).
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