ITS PASSOVER IN ISRAEL FOR THE NEXT 7 DAYS.
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/passover-in-israel-today.html DAY 1
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/china-sudan-military-ties.html DAY 2
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/iran-to-set-free-hostages.html DAY 3
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/eritrea-bans-female-circumcision.html DAY 4
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/passover-for-christians-today.html DAY 5 (S-S)
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/pestilence-in-iraq-again.html DAY 6
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/risen-king-messiah-today.html DAY 7
http://israndjer.blogspot.com/2007/04/hevron-jews-no-leaving-here.html DAY 8
Israel restricts access to Al-Aqsa mosque by Patrick Moser – Mon Mar 29, 4:05 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Monday curbed travel from the West Bank and access to Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound as Jews began to celebrate Passover holidays amid raised tension with the Palestinians.Four Israeli rightwing activists were briefly detained when they tried to make their way to the Old City in annexed east Jerusalem with two goats intended for ritual slaughter, police said.A Passover animal sacrifice near the mosque compound in the Old City would likely have been perceived by Muslims as a challenge to the tense status quo of the site and could have sparked unrest.As the Jewish holiday began, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Monday, the military said, but there were no reports of any casualties or damage.In the West Bank, at the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, a small group of Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli security forces, who responded by firing stun grenades.Jerusalem has been rocked in past weeks by the worst rioting in years, triggered largely by rumours that a rebuilt 17th-century synagogue was part of a plan by Jewish extremists to destroy the revered Al-Aqsa mosque.An announcement of plans to expand settlement construction in Jerusalem has further fuelled the tension while also angering the US administration and casting doubts over proposed peace talks.Police said Muslim men under the age of 50 and all non-Muslims were from Monday barred from entering the compound -- which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Police did not say when the restrictions would be lifted.
Authorities have also tightened restrictions on access to Israel from the occupied West Bank, closing checkpoints to general traffic.The restrictions on the Palestinian territory are to be lifted on April 6 after the conclusion of Passover when Jews commemorate their biblical exodus from Egypt. The holiday begins at sunset on Monday.Israel usually locks down the West Bank during Jewish holidays and has been especially wary in recent months as Palestinians clashed with security forces in and around Al-Aqsa.Dozens of people were injured in September and again this month when violence broke out following rumours that Jewish extremists intended to pray at the compound.Security was particularly tight on Monday around the Al-Aqsa compound, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest for Jews, who call the site Temple Mount.Muslims are intensely sensitive to any perceived change in the status of the compound and many believe Jews are determined to build a new temple on the wide esplanade, the site of the Second Temple destroyed by Romans in 70 AD.
Jewish fringe groups have vowed to build a third Temple, but Israeli political and religious authorities have repeatedly dismissed the idea.The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest disputes between Israel and the Palestinians.It has been at the forefront as US efforts to revive moribund peace talks have made little headway amid Israel's refusal to bow to pressure to halt construction of Jewish homes in mainly Arab east Jerusalem.The US-Israel rupture emerged two weeks ago when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to build 1,600 Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem, embarrassing Vice President Joe Biden when he was in the country. US President Barack Obama during a meeting in Washington with Netanyahu last week asked the Israeli premier to take up a set of confidence-building measures to promote peace talks, according to White House officials. Benny Begin, a member of the security cabinet, told public radio on Monday that the US demands were proving counter-productive. The pressure applied by the Americans will have the opposite effect, inciting Palestinians and Arabs to adopt more extremist positions, said Begin, a minister without portfolio. Reunited Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and there is no way we will give up our sovereignty,he added. Israel annexed east Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East war in a move not recognised by the international community. The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.
Palestinian killed, 12 hurt in Gaza demos: medics
Tue Mar 30, 8:11 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – A Palestinian teenager was killed and 12 people were wounded, including children, as Israeli troops opened fire at Land Day demonstrators near the Gaza border on Tuesday, Palestinian medics said.Hundreds of demonstrators marched to the border, east of the town of Khan Yunis, to mark Land Day, an annual commemoration of Israel's killing of six people during a 1976 protest by Israeli Arabs against land confiscations.Near the site of fierce clashes which left two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinians dead over the weekend, protesters hurled stones at troops along the border, who responded with live fire, witnesses said.
Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, said 11 people, including children, were wounded. One of them, nine-year-old Raid Abu Namus, was in serious condition, medics at a nearby hospital said.Israeli troops earlier shot dead 15-year-old Mohammed al-Faramawi in an incident near the southern Gaza town of Rafah, Hassanein said. Witnesses said he had arrived near the border just ahead of a similar march.Another Palestinian, 14, was shot and wounded during a Land Day demonstration in the Maghazi refugee camp of central Gaza, Hassanein said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the reports.
The borders of the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza have been mostly quiet since a December 2008-January 2009 Israeli assault on the territory that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.The offensive largely succeeded in halting years of near-daily rocket attacks on southern Israel, but recent weeks have seen a rise in such attacks, and a Thai labourer in Israel was killed earlier this month.Israel's Arab minority leads Land Day demonstrations every year to protest against housing demolitions and land confiscations. Similar events are held in the occupied West Bank as well as in Gaza.Israel's 1.2 million Arab citizens, who have the right to vote, are the descendants of the 160,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel after the 1948 Middle East war and creation of the Jewish state.Their standard of living is far higher than that of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza but they say they are still treated as second-class citizens inside Israel.
Hamas seizes $270,000 in frozen funds from bank By RIZEK ABDEL JAWAD and BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writers – Mon Mar 29, 5:40 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Hamas seized $270,000 from a Gaza bank on Monday that had been frozen by the Palestinian government in the West Bank, sparking new feuding between the Gaza militants and their Western-backed rivals.The seizure, which Hamas said was backed by an order from a Hamas-run court, was the latest power play by the radical Islamic group, which violently took control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007. Since then, Abbas' Palestinian Authority has governed only the West Bank. Efforts to reconcile the two sides have failed.The funds were intended for an association called Friends of the Sick, which has run a medical center in Gaza for over a decade.The Palestinian Authority, which used to fund the group, froze the money after the organization elected a Hamas-dominated governing board in July 2009, the group said.This was based on entirely political considerations that have no relationship to the association's charitable work, the group said in a written statement.
About 10 Hamas police officers entered the Bank of Palestine in Gaza City on Monday and demanded 1 million Israeli shekels — about $270,000 — bank employees said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ehab Ghussein confirmed money was taken and said a court ruled the block on the funds was illegal.Ten banks have branches in Gaza, though all of their funds are transferred from West Bank branches under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Monetary Authority.The Monetary Authority criticized the Hamas seizure and announced it was closing Gaza's banks on Tuesday to protest the vicious attack that one of the banks and its employees were exposed to.Friends of the Sick board member Omar Farwana said Monday's seizure was a legal reclaiming of funds from international donors.He confirmed the group received the money taken from the bank and said he expected more seizures.There are two other banks in Gaza that have our money, and during the coming days we'll get it back,he said.Hubbard reported from Jerusalem.
Israeli minister says U.S. boosts Arab hardliners By Dan Williams – Mon Mar 29, 7:23 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Obama administration's pressure on Israel to curb settlement activity will bolster Palestinian hardliners and hinder peace efforts, a senior Israeli cabinet minister said on Monday.Tension with Washington flared three weeks ago, and has simmered since, over the announcement of an Israeli blueprint for 1,600 more homes for Jews in areas of the occupied West Bank that Israel had annexed to East Jerusalem.The Palestinians, who want their own state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with a capital in East Jerusalem, backed out of planned U.S.-mediated peace talks with Israel, demanding the new project be scrapped.Benny Begin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner cabinet, described Washington's view on Jerusalem as departing from that of previous U.S. administrations, that the city's status should be resolved in peace negotiations.It's bothersome, and certainly worrying,Begin told Israel Radio. This change will definitely bring about the opposite to the declared objective. It will bring about a hardening in the policy of the Arabs and of the Palestinian Authority.The diplomatic deadlock has coincided with an increase in Israeli-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, and in the Gaza Strip whose Islamist Hamas rulers spurn the Jewish state and deride Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's peace strategy.Hoping to salvage negotiations, the United States has been seeking unspecified goodwill gestures from Israel toward the Palestinians.Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the newspaper Maariv these included freezing construction in most of the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem. He cited four eastern settlements as examples.
Netanyahu has refused to stop any such projects in Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim not recognized internationally.I am certain that we will convince the U.S. that this demand is unreasonable, Lieberman said in the interview.
BARAK BREAKS WITH BEGIN
U.S. President Barack Obama gave Netanyahu an unusually low-profile reception at White House talks last week, devoid of the traditional photo opportunity or joint statement.Begin's misgivings about the Obama administration have been echoed by others in the seven-member inner cabinet, which guides policy and is dominated by right-wingers including the prime minister.Begin, the son of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, is on record as opposing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, which Israel captured with the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war and has peppered with Jewish settlements.Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 but has vowed to keep West Bank settlement blocs under any accord.Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the only left-winger in the inner cabinet, has taken a different tack on the dispute with the United States.The U.S. administration is looking for an answer to the question of whether Israel is energetically and seriously going along with it toward broad understandings in the diplomatic process, he told reporters on Sunday.In other words, direct talks on core questions, he said.This is the question bothering the U.S. administration more than the concrete requests ... that are still being discussed in the contacts between us.Netanyahu has offered the Palestinians direct negotiations without preconditions. However, to Abbas's chagrin, he has made clear Israel would only accept a Palestinian state shorn of some sovereign powers and which recognized Israel as a Jewish state. The feud with Washington put Netanyahu in a political bind. Meeting U.S. demands on settlements -- after a 10-month partial construction freeze he announced in November -- could endanger his coalition and bolster the centrist opposition. Netanyahu's Likud party has fallen behind the opposition Kadima in opinion polls this month for the first time since last year's election. A Maariv survey on Friday suggested Likud would win 28 of parliament's 120 seats if a ballot were held now, against 29 to Kadima. (Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Arab leaders renew support for peace efforts By SALAH NASRAWI and KHALED AL-DEEB, Associated Press Writers – Sun Mar 28, 4:40 pm ET
SIRTE, Libya – Arab leaders on Sunday renewed their support for Mideast peace efforts, rejecting pressure from Syria and Libya on the Palestinians to abandon talks with Israel and resume armed resistance.The Arab League's backing for the land for peace initiative with Israel comes despite its firm opposition to Israeli plans for new Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem, land Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state.The Arab peace initiative is a serious move. If we withdraw it, what will be the Arab stance after that, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told reporters after the summit's closing session.But the calls from Damascus and Tripoli — which were later echoed by the Islamic militant group Hamas — to quit peace efforts reflected the depth of frustration and anger over the stalled peace process and continued Israeli construction in areas claimed by the Palestinians, particularly east Jerusalem.Syrian President Bashar Assad urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw from a U.S.-supported peace strategy and take up arms against Israel, according to two delegates who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.They said Assad also urged Arab countries to halt any contacts with Israel, though only Egypt and Jordan have peace deals with the Jewish state.The price of resistance is not higher than the price of peace, one delegate quoted Assad as telling Abbas.Summit host Moammar Gadhafi of Libya warned that his nation will withdraw support for the peace initiative launched at a 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut.
Late Sunday, Hamas criticized the summit's support for peace negotiations. The group, whose leader resides in Syria, urged Arabs instead to try a new strategy and unite behind resistance groups, sever diplomatic ties with Israel and support boycott campaigns of the Jewish state.The summit's persistence in keeping negotiations as a strategic option, without considering alternative ways, the foremost of which is resistance, will only add to the arrogance of the Zionist occupation,the group said in a statement issued in Damascus.The group said it still expects Arab leaders to reconsider their political options.Senior Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh swiftly dismissed the pressure.Let us be realistic. We will not follow those who have special agendas, he told Al-Jazeera television.We are ready for any Arab option. If they want to go to war let them declare that and mobilize their armies and their people and we will follow suit.But the wrangling reflects deep division among Arabs over how to deal with the stalled Mideast talks. Arabs blame the sides' failure to return to the negotiating table on Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier this month, Arab nations opened the door for Abbas to enter four months of indirect, American-brokered peace talks with Israel. But they later threatened to withdraw support for the negotiations after Israel announced plans for new Jewish homes in east Jerusalem, the part of the city Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state.Speaking at the summit Saturday, Abbas urged Mideast peace brokers to push Israel to stop settlement construction, and he vowed that the Palestinians will not sign any peace deal with Israel without the Jewish state ending its occupation of east Jerusalem.He accused Netanyahu's government of trying to create a de facto situation in Jerusalem that would torpedo any future peace settlement. The Palestinians are also asking Arab nations for millions of dollars in funding for Palestinians living in east Jerusalem. A day after proposing Arab states directly engage Iran over its growing influence and disputed nuclear program, Moussa said some nations had reservations about an open a dialogue with Tehran. Iran is not an enemy. Iran is a brotherly country. Let us sit and put every thing on the table and reach an agreement for the sake of peace and stability, he said. Turkish Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who attended the summit, immediately endorsed Moussa's proposal, along with Syria and Iraq. But delegates said both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two key U.S allies, rejected the idea. The summit registered a higher than usual number of no-shows from Arab leaders. Eight heads of state stayed away, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Recent Arab summits have been marred by disagreements among Arab leaders, divided between pro-Western rulers and more radical regimes. The divisions tend to water down joint Arab positions.Nasrawi reported from Cairo.
Netanyahu tries to play down tensions with US By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 28, 4:22 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's leader tried to play down tensions with the U.S. on Sunday after a rocky meeting at the White House last week, saying that relations with Washington remain solid.In his first public comments on the matter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet that Israel and the U.S. can work out their differences.The relationship between Israel and the U.S. is one between allies and friends, and it's a relationship based on years of tradition, Netanyahu said.Even if there are disagreements, these are disagreements between friends, and that's how they will stay.The U.S. has criticized Israeli construction in east Jerusalem — the section of the holy city claimed by the Palestinians. It has asked Israel for gestures toward the Palestinians to help relaunch peace talks, which were about to start earlier this month when the latest spat over settlements broke out.The planned negotiations were thrown into doubt after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new apartments for Jews in east Jerusalem. Israel made the announcement while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting, drawing sharp condemnations from Washington and calls to cancel the construction plans.Netanyahu, who has consistently rejected calls for any halt to building in Jerusalem, got a chilly reception at the White House last week. He gave no sign of giving in to the U.S. demand or resolving the dispute by the time he left.Ties between Israel and the U.S. are more tense than they have been in years.
Netanyahu discussed the matter with his Cabinet ministers at their weekly meeting Sunday, and told reporters before the meeting that he had taken certain steps in order to narrow the gaps.No details from the reportedly tense Obama-Netanyahu meeting have been made public. The administration's precise demands on Israel and what Israel has offered in return have also remained under wraps.Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is a member of the moderate Labor Party, told reporters Sunday that Israel must make its own decisions relating to its vital interests. But he added that we cannot ever lose touch with the importance of the relations and the ability to act in harmony and wide unity of purpose with the United States.In Washington, David Axelrod, a top adviser to President Barack Obama, said Sunday the relationship with Israel remains strong. However, he gave no indication the sides were any closer to resolving their dispute.Israel is a close, dear, and valued friend of the U.S., a great ally. That is an unshakable bond, Axelrod told CNN. But sometimes part of friendship is expressing yourself bluntly.Palestinian officials said they have been told by U.S. officials that Washington is still pushing Netanyahu for further concessions and awaiting his response. The Palestinian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive diplomatic matter.
Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed it, a move that was never recognized by the international community. The current tension surrounds Israeli construction in the Jewish neighborhoods it has built in east Jerusalem. The international community considers these neighborhoods to be illegal settlements, no different from the more than 120 Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank.Netanyahu says that Israel will retain its east Jerusalem neighborhoods in any peace deal, so building there does not harm the chances for peace.The Israeli construction plans and deadlock in peace efforts have helped fuel recent Palestinian protests in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.On Sunday, Israel said it was imposing a closure on the West Bank as a security measure for the duration of the weeklong Passover holiday. The routine measure, which was to begin at midnight, bars almost all Palestinians from entering Israel.
Israel's Labour mulls quitting government
Sun Mar 28, 2:53 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's centre-left Labour party will meet next month to discuss quitting the government, a minister said Sunday, amid a lingering dispute between Israel and the United States over settlements.Our parliamentary bloc will meet after Passover to re-examine our participation in the governing coalition, social affairs minister Isaac Herzog told Israeli public radio.The week-long Passover holiday commemorating the Jews' biblical exodus from Egypt begins at sunset on Monday.We will reconsider our participation in the government in view of its political programme... I will recommend joining a Kadima government, Herzog said, referring to the centrist party of former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.Israel is confronting an international situation and threats from Iran, and this requires a change in the structure of the governing coalition, he added.Earlier this month another Labour member, agriculture minister Shalom Simhon, said the party was considering quitting the hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over the row with the United States.Simhon criticised the announcement of plans to build 1,600 new settler homes in east Jerusalem during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden which ignited the dispute, calling it a grave error.
A decision by Labour to quit the coalition would leave Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority of 61 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament.Many Israelis fear that the simmering row over settlements between the two close allies could hinder international efforts to halt Iran's nuclear drive, which Israel considers its greatest threat.Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear power, believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian programme, accusations denied by Tehran.
Israel restricts West Bank access ahead of Passover
Sun Mar 28, 9:29 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel will restrict access to its territory from the occupied West Bank starting late Sunday ahead of the week-long Jewish Passover holiday, the military said.Checkpoints will be closed to general traffic but medical cases, humanitarian aid, and professionals and students with permits will be able to cross, it said in a statement.
The closures will be lifted on Tuesday, April 6.The Passover holiday, during which Jews commemorate their biblical exodus from Egypt, will last for seven days beginning on Monday at sunset.Ahead of the clampdown, about 150 Palestinian, Israeli and foreign activists were astonished to find themselves able to walk through a checkpoint from the West Bank to Jerusalem with Palestinian flags, a horse and donkey in tow.The demonstrators, protesting Israeli closures, found the terminal gates open and lightly-manned, according to an AFP correspondent.Israeli soldiers at the site appeared equally surprised. Police who sped to the scene stopped the marchers a few hundred metres (yards) after the crossing and returned them to the West Bank.Israel usually tightens restrictions on West Bank residents during Jewish holidays and has been especially wary in recent months as other festivals have seen clashes in and around Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
In September and again earlier this month dozens of people were wounded when violence broke out following rumours that Jewish extremists intended to pray at the compound, which was the location of the Second Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and is considered Judaism's holiest site.A Jerusalem police intelligence officer said security forces were ready for any attempt by hardline Jews to march to the site or by Islamic activists to whip up anti-Israeli fervour.Thousands of police... are deployed throughout the city, particularly in east Jerusalem around the Temple Mount, Commander Nissim Edri told Israeli public radio, referring to the compound by its Jewish name.The police will not allow any demonstration or breach of the peace on the Temple Mount by anybody, neither the (Jewish) right nor extremist Muslims, he said.The same wide esplanade is the third holiest site in Islam, and Muslims are intensely sensitive to any perceived change in its status quo. The compound is open to tourists of all faiths, but only Muslims can pray there.
Israel PM blames Palestinians for hindering talks
Sun Mar 28, 6:40 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday blamed the Palestinians for hindering US-led peace efforts by hardening their positions' and refusing to relaunch negotiations.We continue to see that the Palestinians are hardening their positions. They do not show any sign of moderation, Netanyahu said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Saturday ruled out holding even indirect talks with Israel unless it freezes settlement construction in the West Bank including mostly Arab east Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in 1967.We cannot resume indirect negotiations as long as Israel maintains its settlement policy and the status quo, the Western-backed leader said at the opening of a two-day Arab summit in the Libyan city of Sirte.There won't be any (peace) agreement that does not guarantee an end to the occupation, starting with Jerusalem, because there is no sense in having a Palestinian state that does not have Jerusalem as its capital, he said.Netanyahu said the annual meeting, which this year is aimed in large part at condemning Israeli policies in the Holy City, was unlikely to support US-led efforts to revive negotiations suspended over a year ago.I do not think that the discussions by the Arab League can support this process, but we will show restraint and continue our contacts with the Americans in order to restart the talks, he said.
Earlier this month the Palestinians reluctantly agreed to US-mediated indirect talks with Israel but the planned negotiations collapsed two days later when Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new settler homes in east Jerusalem during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.Israel has refused to halt construction in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, which it views as part of its eternal, undivided capital. No other government recognises its claim to the eastern part of the city.The Palestinians have said Israel's construction of settlements is the main obstacle to reaching a peace deal because it is carving off parts of their promised state, including east Jerusalem, which they view as their capital.Netanyahu imposed a 10-month halt on new construction in the West Bank in November, but the move was rejected by the Palestinians because it did not include east Jerusalem, public buildings, and projects already under way.A half million Israelis live in more than 120 settlements in the occupied territories, including some 200,000 Jews living in east Jerusalem alongside around 270,000 Arabs.
Arab League eyes alternatives to peace process By Lamine Ghanmi – Sat Mar 27, 12:05 pm ET
SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Arab states should prepare for the possibility that the Palestinian-Israeli peace process may be a total failure and come up with alternatives, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said on Saturday.The troubled peace process suffered a setback this month when the Palestinians said indirect talks with the Israelis would not take place unless Israel canceled a decision to build 1,600 new homes in a settlement near east Jerusalem.Further underscoring the obstacles to reviving negotiations, two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian were killed in a clash in the Gaza strip on Friday, the bloodiest fighting in the enclave in 14 months.Moussa did not say what the alternatives to the peace process might be, but one option is to revive an eight-year-old initiative under which Arab states would normalize ties with the Jewish state in exchange for Israeli concessions on territory.Speaking to Arab leaders at a summit of the Arab League in the Libyan town of Sirte, Moussa said a fresh approach was needed.We have to study the possibility that the peace process will be a complete failure, Moussa said.It's time to face Israel. We have to have alternative plans because the situation has reached a turning point.The peace process has entered a new stage, perhaps the last stage. We have accepted the efforts of mediators. We have accepted an open-ended peace process.
But that resulted in a loss of time and we did not achieve anything and allowed Israel to practice its policy for 20 years, he said.
U.N. BACKS TALKS
Earlier this month the Arab League gave its blessing to the Palestinians to conduct proximity talks with Israel, and its stance on whether those negotiations should still go ahead could be decisive.U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on the sidelines of the summit that he had urged Arab leaders to support the proximity talks, despite setbacks on the ground.There is no alternative to negotiations on a two-state solution. Without that, we risk sliding into despair and the potential for more violence of the kind we have witnessed recently, he told reporters.But Palestinian delegates said Israeli actions had, in effect, frozen the talks. There appeared to be no consensus among Arab states at the summit about whether to back the talks or call for them to be put on hold.The alternative to the stalled peace process which is favored by many states in the region is the Arab Peace Initiative, first proposed by Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002.Under that initiative, Arab countries would normalize relations with Israel in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and a fair settlement for Palestinian refugees.The Arab League chief also said the 22-member organization should start talking to Tehran to address concerns, especially strong among Iran's neighbors across the Persian Gulf, about its nuclear program.I know there is a worry among Arabs regarding Iran but this situation confirms the necessity of a dialogue with Iran, Moussa said in his speech.Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose country's traditionally warm relations with Israel have soured in the past few months, was a guest at the summit and he accepted an offer to form a new regional grouping of Turkey and the Arab League. (Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Israeli tanks in Gaza in worst clash in year By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Fri Mar 26, 4:33 pm ET
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli tanks advanced into the Gaza Strip on Friday after the worst clash with Palestinian fighters in 14 months killed two on each side, and Palestinian sources reported more casualties in the fighting.They said five Israeli tanks and two armored bulldozers advanced from the east firing shells at targets near the town of Khan Younis in the center of the narrow coastal enclave.The Gaza-based militant group Popular Resistance Committees confirmed one of its fighters was critically wounded by shelling. Palestinian sources reported Israeli helicopters and unmanned military drones in the skies.Witnesses near the scene said the sounds of gunfire abated an hour before midnight (2100 GMT) but the tanks were still in place firing occasional rounds. Residents were fearful of a bigger Israeli incursion, and evacuation warnings were given.The Israeli army earlier said an officer and a conscript were killed when Palestinian gunmen fired on an Israeli military patrol inside the Strip. Two soldiers were wounded and two Palestinian fighters also died in that clash, it said.Palestinian officials did not immediately confirm the two deaths but said at least five Palestinians, one a 10-year-old boy, were wounded according to Gaza hospital officials.I think it's true to say that this is one of the fiercest days we have had since operation Cast Lead happened, Israeli army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said.
It was a tragic and a painful incident in a zone where there is an everyday war, with Palestinian gunmen planting explosives near the fence and frequent cross-border fire at ranges of a couple of hundred meters.Israeli forces have to operate from both sides of the fence in order to have a maximum defensive system, she said.The clash did not appear to be directly linked to the current diplomatic impasse between Israel, the Palestinians and the United States over Israeli settlement of occupied West Bank land and stalled efforts to relaunch peace talks.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
HAMAS SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE
The militant Islamist group Hamas which has ruled the enclave since 2007 said its men had fired on Israeli soldiers who crossed into the Strip.Hundreds of Hamas supporters took to the streets of Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip to celebrate the killing of the two Israeli soldiers, led by senior Hamas lawmaker Mushir Al-Masri, who praised the battle.Entering Gaza is not a picnic, he said.The Zionists cannot come in anytime they wish and leave anytime and however they want, Masri told the crowd. The Qassam Brigades (Hamas's armed wing) were ready and taught them a lesson and they should not repeat such a foolish act,Hamas had largely held its fire since a costly three-week war with Israel in the opening days of 2009 in which some 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 13 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed.But smaller factions have violated the de facto truce by firing rockets and mortars into neighboring Israeli territory.Israel said it was holding Hamas accountable for the violence, which made further retaliatory action likely. Hamas is accountable for any activity that takes place from Gaza to Israel, an Israeli military spokeswoman told reporters. Two other groups, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said their men also took part in the fighting. Israeli armored pursuits into Gaza are not unusual. The Israelis try to maintain a buffer zone within the border fence and keep it off-limits to Palestinian fighters.
Statements by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades did not make clear who carried out the initial ambush on the Israeli patrol. There have been calls from militants for an uprising to resist Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem. Tensions have run high along the Gaza frontier this month, with Israel launching repeated air strikes in response to Palestinian rocket attacks, one of which killed a Thai worker in a kibbutz farm last week. An Israeli soldier was accidentally shot dead by comrades earlier this month as they rushed to intercept three Palestinian border-jumpers, who were later found to have been going in search of work in Israel. The last time an Israeli soldier was killed on the Gaza border was 9 days after the offensive ended in January 2009, when a bomb planted by Palestinian gunmen exploded.
(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Hamas urges Arab leaders to save Jerusalem
Fri Mar 26, 1:40 pm ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – A Hamas official on Friday urged Arab leaders meeting in Libya for a weekend summit to bolster their efforts to save Jerusalem from Israeli settlements.
Real will from the Arabs (is needed) ... to mobilise efforts, to put pressure on the international community to save Jerusalem and to stop the Zionist aggression, Ezzat al-Rushok told AFP in Damascus.The member of Hamas's political bureau called on Arab leaders to adopt useful and responsible positions to confront the challenges imposed by the Israeli government.Arab leaders must pressure the United States and European countries, through the economic interests of those countries in the Arab and Islamic world ... to force the Zionist entity (Israel) to halt its acts of terrorism and its threats to the Al-Aqsa mosque,in Jerusalem's Old City, he added.Arab foreign ministers gathered in the Mediterranean city of Sirte on Thursday agreed to the Palestinian Authority's request for 500 million dollars (376 million euros) in aid to help Jerusalem Palestinians cope as they are squeezed out by Israel's settlement drive.A day earlier, Israel had given the green light to the construction of 20 new homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, despite the crisis caused by its announcement earlier this month of plans to build 1,600 new settler homes there.On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated that there was no change in Israel's policy on Jerusalem,which sees the Holy City as the country's eternal and indivisible capital. He had just returned from a tense visit to Washington overshadowed by a bitter row between the two allies over settlements, including in east Jerusalem.
Abbas first Arab leader in Libya for Jerusalem summit by Joseph Eid – Fri Mar 26, 12:41 pm ET
SIRTE, Libya (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas arrived in Libya on Friday for an Arab summit expected to be dominated by Israel's controversial building of settlement homes in annexed east Jerusalem.Abbas was the first Arab leader to fly into the Mediterranean city of Sirte, hometown of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi who will be hosting his first Arab summit on Saturday and Sunday.Kadhafi was not present to greet Abbas, who was received by Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi.
Shortly afterwards, however, the flamboyant Libyan leader, who is known for his unpredictability and for ruffling the feathers of fellow Arab heads of states, was on the tarmac to receive Jordan's King Abdullah II.Abbas landed in Libya amid reports that two Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion on the Gaza-Israel border and as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to pursue his settlement policy and convened his security cabinet.The Palestinian leader was to meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon later on Friday and also to discuss the latest crisis with Israel with a special ministerial committee.The committee was set up after a Saudi-inspired peace offer to normalise Arab ties with Israel if the Jewish state withdrew from all Arab lands conquered since 1967 was adopted at an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002.The UN chief is expected to brief the committee on a call by the Middle East Quartet -- European Union, Russia, United States and United Nations -- urging Israel to freeze settlement construction in east Jerusalem.Ban, who also flew in to Friday in Libya, said in the run-up to the summit that he would ask leaders to back US-brokered indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians despite tensions over Israel's settlement plans.Settlements are illegal under international law. This must stop, said Ban, who is to address the summit's opening session.But a defiant Netanyahu told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz he refuses to halt settlement construction in mostly Arab east Jerusalem because of his own beliefs and not because of pressure from his right-wing coalition.The leaders of Kuwait, Algeria, Mauritania, Somalia also arrived for the summit while the rulers of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates sent representatives.
Several leaders from the 22-member Arab League will be absent.Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is recovering from surgery in a German hospital and Lebanese counterpart Michel Sleiman is also staying away, amid a diplomatic spat with Tripoli.It was not clear if King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who traded insults with Kadhafi at last year's Arab summit in Doha, would attend.Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, meanwhile, is to travel on Saturday to Sirte as the only foreign head of state to have been invited to attend the summit, officials in Rome told AFP.
Berlusconi is expected to call for an Israeli settlement freeze in a speech at the summit and urge Arabs to show signs of normalisation of ties with Israel, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.Italy has longstanding links with its former colony Libya.
No change in policy on Jerusalem: Israel PM
Fri Mar 26, 3:35 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli policy on Jerusalem remains unchanged, the prime minister's office said on Friday, one day after the premier returned from Washington where he faced pressure to freeze settlements.The prime minister's position is that there is no change in Israel's policy on Jerusalem that has been pursued by all governments of Israel for the last 42 years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu's office said in a statement.Israel insists a partial moratorium on settlement building it imposed in the occupied West Bank cannot be extended to east Jerusalem as it considers the entire city its eternal and indivisible capital.
Later in the day, Netanyahu was to discuss with his security cabinet a series of issues from the contacts he had in the United States in order to restart peace talks with the Palestinians,the statement said.A tight-lipped Netanyahu returned home Thursday after a tense visit to Washington that appeared to deepen a bitter row with the administration of US President Barack Obama over the building of Jewish settlements.The Americans have reportedly given Netanyahu a series of demands needed to kickstart moribund peace talks with the Palestinians.Netanyahu will meet his inner forum of seven senior ministers to draw up Israel's response to Washington, Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser told public radio on Friday, denying media reports the US had given Israel a deadline.I suggest you wait patiently. The forum of seven is meeting today in the afternoon to discuss things. If there is a necessity for further discussions they will happen, Hauser told the radio.All aspects of the issue will be examined and they will formulate Israel's position according to Israel's interests and in the time needed to do so, he said.Hauser declined to discuss the details of Washington's demands, in line with the laconic stance adopted by both sides.
Arabs to raise $500 million for Jerusalem: Mussa
Thu Mar 25, 2:47 pm ET
SIRTE, Libya (AFP) – Arab foreign ministers preparing a summit of heads of state in Libya agreed on Thursday to raise 500 million dollars for Jerusalem Palestinians, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said.Yes, they have agreed, Mussa told reporters when asked if the fund had been approved by the ministers in the Libyan Mediterranean city where Arab heads of state will hold their annual summit on Saturday and Sunday.
The leaders must now ratify the agreement.The Palestinian Authority had put in a request for 500 million dollars (376 million euros) in Arab aid to help Jerusalem Palestinians cope as they are being squeezed out by Israel's settlement drive.
