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ULKARM, West Bank, March 31 — An unbroken string of Israeli Merkava tanks this afternoon rolled up the hill toward this Palestinian city, home to the man who blew himself up Wednesday night at a Passover celebration, killing 22 people and leading to the storming of Yasir Arafat's compound by the Israeli Army. At his family's home in a prosperous part of town, the suicide bomber's father, brother, uncle and other relatives sat at a wake, receiving congratulations from friends and neighbors — even now, four days after the death of the bomber, Abdel-Basset Odeh. "Everyone's proud of him," said...

NEW YORK (April 1) - The family of Brooklyn-born Adam Shapiro rejoiced on Saturday night upon hearing that the volunteer medic was released after treating Palestinian wounded and dining with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in his besieged Ramallah headquarters. Shapiro, 30, a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, which organizes non-violent protest against what it calls Israeli occupation, entered Arafat's headquarters on Friday evening to treat and evacuate the wounded. He also negotiated the entry of a Red Cross ambulance and a doctor. Shapiro told the New York Post he feared for his life until the IDF permitted him...

RAMALLAH (April 1) - An American journalist, Anthony Shadid, from The Boston Globe, was shot in the shoulder and moderately wounded, apparently by a Palestinian gunman, as he was trying to get out of Ramallah. Shadid had been holed up in a hotel in Ramallah for some time and had been reluctant to flee in the midst of the gun battles. He was shot during an attempt to leave the area. He was then taken to the hospital in Ramallah with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. His condition was stable but no further details are available, said Globe bureau...

Jordan and Egypt issued stern warnings to Israel yesterday, and demanded that Israel Defense Forces troops withdraw from Ramallah and not harm Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. In consultations held by Jordanian and Egyptian officials yesterday, the two countries considered ordering Israel's ambassadors in Cairo and Amman to return to Jerusalem, a diplomatic source said. The source stated that Jordan and Egypt are "considering this possibility" of telling Israel's diplomats to leave their countries, and that a decision on this matter depends upon developments in the territories. The Egyptians and Jordanians would carry out such a step in unison, the...

Leftist Activists Attempt to Smuggle Wanted Terrorists (IsraelNN.com) Chief Operations Officer of the IDF General Staff, Major General Giora Island, stated that a delegation of Western leftist activists and reporters, who had entered Ramallah to show their support for the isolated PLO leader, attempted to smuggle 20 wanted terrorists out of Arafat’s headquarters. The terrorists had found sanctuary in the Ramallah offices of the Palestinian Authority leader, but tried to escape undetected by intermingling with the leftist activists as they exited the compound. However, as the delegation of forty foreign activists and reporters, along with the 20 wanted terrorists, exited...

CRC 'shocked' by explosives in Palestinian ambulanceBy Judy Siegel JERUSALEM (March 31) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said at the weekend it was "shocked and dismayed" that explosives were hidden by Palestinians in a Palestine Red Crescent Society's (PRCS) ambulance. The ICRC said it "condemns such abuse of an ambulance and of the Red Crescent emblem" and called for Palestinian "respect of the ambulances' medical mission." After the Israeli authorities reported the discovery of explosives in the ambulance, with a child lying on top of them, ICRC delegates made immediate contact with the Israeli authorities and...

BEIRUT, March 28 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah and Iraq's presidential envoy Izzat Ibrahim hugged and kissed at an Arab summit in Beirut on Thursday, the first such high-level public contact since the 1990 Gulf crisis. Live television footage showed delegates at the summit applauding as the two men embraced. The breakthrough came after Iraq and Kuwait reached a landmark agreement that could pave the way for a rapprochement for the first time since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The agreement, according to a draft text obtained by Reuters, said Arab leaders "welcomed Iraq's confirmation to...

AMALLAH, West Bank, March 17 — It is hard to find anyone here in this Palestinian center who does not believe that attacks should continue full force against Israel, even as the United States' special envoy pursues his increasingly difficult task of trying to achieve a cease-fire between the two sides. Palestinians say that Yasir Arafat, their leader, has issued no order in recent days to stop the terror attacks and probably could not enforce one in any case. Numerous Palestinians, in interviews today, showed no remorse for the Israelis injured and killed in today's attacks. The opposite, in fact....

Filed at 8:48 p.m. ETQALQILYA, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli tanks rumbled into Qalqilya early on Monday in what appeared to be a widescale raid of the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town, Palestinian security sources and residents said.About 50 tanks and armored personnel carriers, covered by helicopter gunships, thrust into Qalqilya in the middle of the night, they said. The forces cut the electricity supply to the town moments before entering, residents said.The Israeli army declined immediate comment on the operation, which appeared to be similar to a large-scale raid into the town of Tulkarm last week in what the army...

BRITISH security officials are looking into suspicions that a crack sniper who killed 10 Israeli soldiers and civilians on the West Bank a week ago might be an IRA gunman. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, has asked European and American security agencies if they can help to identify the killer, who shot dead seven soldiers and three civilians in 25 minutes using 25 bullets from a bolt-action rifle. The sniper was hidden in trees on a hill overlooking an army checkpoint near the Jewish settlement of Ofra. When he fled, he left behind his weapon, which is standard IRA practice....

Sounds like another one.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Texas-based Muslim charity organization has filed a lawsuit after the Bush administration froze the group's financial assets for allegedly funneling money to terrorists. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development denies any ties with Hamas, a militant Islamic group that has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Israel. The suit filed Friday in federal district court in Washington contends the Bush administration violated the group's constitutional rights by shutting down the foundation's office in December and seizing its assets. The group raised $13 million two years ago and calls itself the largest Muslim charity in ...

Excerpt: "Several officials said the allegations -- first reported by a French online publication and later by other news organizations -- of a massive U.S. probe of Israeli spies appear to have been circulated by a single employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration who is angry that his theories have not gained currency." Rest here

By Lamia LahoudJERUSALEM (March 7) - More than 60 percent of Palestinians support the continuation of the violence and suicide attacks against Israelis, according to a poll released yesterday by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion. The poll also showed strong support for Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. The poll, which has a margin of error of 2.47%, was conducted between February 25 and March 3 in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and east Jerusalem. Of the 571 people selected at random, 66.5% said they support the continuation of the intifada, and 64.3% favored suicide attacks. Supporting Arafat were 66.1%; ...

Benny Morris was the radical Israeli historian who forced his country to confront its role in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Later he was jailed for refusing to do military service in the West Bank. But now he has changed his tune. As the cycle of violence in the Middle East intensifies, he launches a vicious attack on the 'inveterate liar' Yasser Arafat - and explains why he believes a peaceful coexistence is impossible The rumour that I have undergone a brain transplant is (as far as I can remember) unfounded - or at least premature. But ...

Efrat Residents Place Pigskin on Terrorist’s Body (IsraelNN.com) Efrat residents on Friday placed pigskin on the body of the bomber killed while trying to perpetrate a bombing/shooting attack in a community supermarket on Friday morning. Residents explained the pigskin was to ensure the Islamic terrorist does not go to heaven as is preached by Islam, where he expects to be greeted by 70 virgins, because he is now contaminated with the pigskin. Several community residents realizing the attempted attack was in progress fired at the lone terrorist, killing him.

SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 23 — Opponents of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan blamed his military government today for failing to prevent the killing of Daniel Pearl, and they warned that the situation could get worse before it got better as General Musharraf tries to make good on a promise to put an end to terrorism. On Friday night, General Musharraf said in a national television address that the killing of Mr. Pearl, an American journalist, apparently by Muslim militants, had doubled his resolve "to move much more strongly against all such terrorist people and those organizations that perpetrate terrorism, to ...

Another French minister blasted US foreign policy, calling it "Texas-style diplomacy" and saying that law and not force should govern international relations. Charles Josselin, minister for overseas cooperation, was commenting in the Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat Wednesday on Washington's sharp reaction to recent criticism by French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine. Josselin said the US response was because Vedrine had "touched a sore spot". He added that after the terror attacks of September 11, "there was a danger of Washington justifying its excesses and use of force by its right to defend itself." "It is Texas-style diplomacy", Josselin said, referring to ...

At least 12 Palestinians were reported killed early Wednesday in waves of air, sea and ground IDF reprisal raids launched hours after Palestinian attackers killed six soldiers at a West Bank roadblock Tuesday night. One hour after a detachment of Israeli soldiers took over the Ramallah-area roadblock from another unit, as many as four Palestinians shot dead the soldiers and wounded a seventh, then escaped apparently unhurt to the neighboring village of Ein Arik. An eighth Israeli soldier, a sniper on the roof of a building next to the roadblock, was uninjured in the attack, Army Radio reported, adding that ...

Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman said Sunday during his visit to Israel there was a similarity between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. He also warned against adopting a policy of appeasement and stressed that there should be no negotiations with terrorists. Zeman made the comments during a television interview on Channel Two. "I am here to express some gesture of solidarity of one small nation toward another small nation which faces the dangers in the fight against worldwide terrorism," he said. He said that the Czech people "have some historical experience in the fight against terrorism ...