Free Republic

Israel will not end the siege on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Ramallah headquarters until the fugitives inside surrender, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Monday. Besieged and beleaguered, Arafat was left with just one building standing in his city-block-sized headquarters compound on Monday, after Israeli bulldozers knocked down numerous buildings during the last three days. Code-named "A Matter of Time, the Israeli operation against Arafat's Mukata compound follows last week's suicide bombing on a bus in Tel Aviv in which six Israelis were killed. A day earlier another suicide bomber killed an Israeli policeman in...

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 2 July — Threatening with more bloodshed, the Islamist Hamas organization yesterday vowed revenge for the assassination of its West Bank leader, while Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer praised the killing as “the most important military operation in the past two months”.The call for revenge came as Palestinian Authority Cabinet’s Secretary-General Ahmed Abdel Rahman called on Palestinian residents to engage in “civil disobedience” to protest the Israeli takeover of seven West Bank cities over the past two weeks.Speaking on Israel Radio, Ben Eliezer called Muhaned Taher, 26, the commander of Hamas’ military arm in the West Bank,...