Saturday, December 04, 2010

FIRE NEGLIGENCE LIKELY-ISRAEL SAYS

Israeli police say negligence likely caused blaze By SEBASTIAN SCHEINER, Associated Press – Sat Dec 4, 1:12 pm ET

EIN HOD, Israel – Negligence, not arson, appears to have caused the worst forest fire in Israel's history, police said Saturday as firefighters from around the world worked to quell the deadly blaze for a third consecutive day.Authorities have arrested two male minors in connection with the fire, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He refused to provide further details, but said: We're talking negligence at the moment.There have been conflicting reports about what sparked the fire. Israel Radio, citing unidentified police officials, said early Saturday that the blaze likely was started by a family that failed to extinguish a picnic fire. Israeli TV, meanwhile, has reported that kids holding a bonfire may have been the source.The blaze, which broke out Thursday, tore through the hilly pine Carmel Forest that clings to the mountain ridge above the northern city of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. It also lapped at the edges of small outlying communities.The fire has killed 41 people — most of them prison guards whose bus was engulfed by flames as they rushed to evacuate a prison. A 16-year-old volunteer firefighter also died after joining the rescue mission.More than 17,000 people had been evacuated from their homes before officials gave some of them the all-clear to return on Saturday. Firefighter spokesman Yoram Levy said the blaze had subsided, but added that he can't say it's under control.Critics contrasted Israel's helplessness in the face of a wildfire with its reputation for swift and effective responses to disasters abroad.

We are experts in some tragedies but it seems we were not really prepared for an event related to fire,said Hanan Goder, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, which is helping to coordinate the international response to the fire.Israeli firefighters have complained for years of undersized crews, outdated equipment and minimal supplies. The country only has 1,400 firefighters, far below the worldwide average. And while it has a highly sophisticated air force, it doesn't have a single firefighting plane. It ran out of flame retardants on the first day of the blaze, Levy said.In the small artist community of Ein Hod, one woman desperately tried to protect her house from the encroaching flames with only a garden hose.Netanyahu told a news conference Saturday evening that his government would find the money to form an airborne firefighting force.International aid continued to flow into Israel in a bid to help quell the fire, which continued Saturday to rage out of control for a third day.U.S. planes laden with equipment were expected to land later Saturday, alongside aircraft sent from New York City's firefighting department, an Israeli military official said. French and Italian firefighting planes were also en route.

The aircraft are expected to join firefighters and planes that already have arrived from Bulgaria, Greece, Jordan, Turkey, Russia, Cyprus and Britain. Aid has also come from Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians.Netanyahu sought to stress that one important thing has emerged from the crisis.Israel stands united, and many states stand by Israel's side, said Netanyahu, whose government is embattled over stalled Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.By Saturday, the fire had burnt some 15 square miles (40 square kilometers) of land — more than one-third of the Carmel Forest, parks officials said.While small by international standards, the loss of the verdant forest land was keenly felt in Israel, where only 7 percent of the land is wooded. The Carmel forest makes up 5 percent of that forested land.

Lebanon complains to UN about Israeli spy devices
– Sat Dec 4, 11:11 am ET


BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon on Saturday filed a complaint with the United Nations over spying devices planted by Israel on its territory which it said the Israeli army later detonated.The foreign ministry said in a statement it filed the complaint after Israeli troops on Friday detonated by remote control spying devices that Israel had planted inside Lebanon.The statement accused Israel of violating the terms of Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.The Lebanese army said on Friday that Israeli troops detonated by remote control two spying devices the Jewish state had planted in the south of the country.Two labourers suffered light injuries when the devices exploded in Wadi al-Qaysiyya outside Majdal Selem near the southern coastal city of Tyre, an army spokesman had told AFP.Hezbollah -- which has accused Israel of infiltrating its telecom network -- said technicians from the movement's counter-espionage teams had discovered the devices, a statement on Friday said.Meanwhile the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said on Saturday that it was investigating Friday's reported explosions to see if they were in violation of Resolution 1701.Lebanon is mired in tensions over impending indictments by a UN-backed probe into the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

Netanyahu and Abbas hold rare phone chat over fires
– Sat Dec 4, 9:47 am ET


JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed condolences in a rare telephone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday over the deadly fires raging in northern Israel, Israeli officials said.The two leaders were not believed to have spoken since they last met in September when U.S.-backed peace talks stalled in a spat over Jewish settlement construction.A statement from Netanyahu's office said Abbas expressed his condolences to the people of Israel on those who died in the fire and said he would be happy to provide any necessary help.In the conversation described as warm and friendly, Netanyahu replied that neighbors should always help each other.Netanyahu also suggested he would put a fleet of firefighter planes he has plans to establish at the disposal of Israel's Arab neighbors, the statement said.The fire in which 42 Israelis were killed, ravaging forests outside the port of Haifa for three days now, caught Israel without enough firefighting equipment, forcing Netanyahu to seek foreign help from about a dozen countries.Israeli police suspect the fire was set by negligence after the lighting of a campfire on grounds near the drought-stricken woodland.Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have remained stalled over the settlements dispute, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday the United States was making intensive efforts to relaunch the talks and would announce further steps next week.
(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan)

Abbas threatens to dissolve Palestinian Authority
– Sat Dec 4, 9:39 am ET


RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied land.If Israel does not stop settlement building and if US support for the negotiations collapses, I will strive to end Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories, Abbas told Palestinian television on Friday.I cannot be the president of a non-existent authority as long as Israeli occupation of the West Bank continues, he said.Asked if he was referring to a dissolution of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Abbas said: I say that to the Israelis: I inform them that, as occupiers, they can stay put. But the situation cannot remain unchanged.The 1993 Oslo peace accords formally launched the peace process and led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, which was tasked with governing parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip until a final agreement.But after 17 years of largely fruitless talks, Israel and the Palestinians are no nearer to reaching an agreement, with the latest attempt at negotiations running aground over continuing Jewish settlement building.

Direct talks began on September 2 but stalled three weeks later with the expiry of an Israeli moratorium on settlement construction, which the Jewish state has stubbornly refused to reimpose.Abbas has repeatedly threatened to quit the talks if Israel does not begin a new freeze, particularly in annexed east Jerusalem which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that Washington is working intensively to break the impasse in Palestinian-Israeli talks and would make announcements next week about the peace process.

Israel saddened as Brazil recognises Palestinian state
– Sat Dec 4, 8:13 am ET


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Saturday said it was disappointed by Brazil's decision to recognise a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.The decision was announced by outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a public letter addressed to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, which was made public by Brazil's foreign ministry on Friday.The government of Israel expresses sadness and disappointment over the decision by the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a month before he steps down, a statement from the Israeli foreign ministry said.Recognition of a Palestinian state is a breach of the interim agreement which was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1995 which said that the issue of the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be discussed and resolved through negotiations, it said.Such a move also contravened the 2003 Middle East roadmap for peace, which said a Palestinian state could only be established through negotiations and not through unilateral actions, the statement said, warning that unilateral steps would harm attempts to build trust.Every attempt to bypass this process and to decide in advance in a unilateral manner about important issues which are disputed, only harms trust between the sides, and hurts their commitment to the agreed framework of negotiating towards peace.Lula's letter was sent in response to a personal request made by Abbas on November 24, the Brazilian document said.

The letter refers to the legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people for a secure, united, democratic and economically viable state coexisting peacefully with Israel.Although the international community backs Palestinian demands for a state on land seized by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, most Western governments insist that the state should be established through a negotiated peace agreement with Israel.The move by Brazil comes as peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians teeter on the brink of collapse following the end of a temporary ban on Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.Abbas says he will not return to negotiations while Israel continues to build on land the Palestinians want for a future state. But Israel has so far refused to impose a new ban.Over the last few weeks, Abbas has repeatedly said he would explore other options if peace talks with the Israelis collapse -- one of which would see him seeking United Nations' recognition of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.On Thursday, a Palestinian official said Washington had officially informed them that attempts to secure a new Israeli settlement freeze had failed, but US officials refused to confirm or deny the report.Abbas visited Brazil in 2005 and 2009, and Lula made the first-ever trip by a Brazilian head of state to Israel and the Palestinian territories in March this year.

U.S. to unveil next Mideast peace steps: Clinton
By Andrew Quinn – Fri Dec 3, 3:39 pm ET


MANAMA (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday the United States would make new announcements next week on the next steps in the Mideast peace process and she was not ready to declare the process a failure.We are not prepared to make any announcement about what we're doing and what our next steps are until early next week, Clinton told Al Hurra television in an interview in Bahrain.We're going to have some additional consultations with both the Israelis and the Palestinians. But there are a number of ways that we're going to move forward, Clinton said.Asked directly if she viewed the process, which a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday had collapsed, as a failure, Clinton demurred.We're not ready to say that, she said.Clinton said earlier that the United States continued to work intensively to relaunch the direct peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians which began in September but quickly stalled over the issue of Israeli settlement building.I think we've made progress, but it really depends on the parties deciding that they're willing to make the tough compromises on the key issues, Clinton told Al Hurra.We have been talking with both parties very substantively, and I think that the United States can play a role to help each make decisions about very difficult matters that then can be presented to the other side.A senior Palestinian official said on Thursday that the United States should blame Israel for what he said was the collapse of the peace process.

NEW BUILDING PLANS

Israeli plans announced on Wednesday to build near East Jerusalem showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not want to resume stalled peace talks, Palestinian officials said.It's time for the American administration to tell the world that Israel holds the responsibility for the collapse of this peace process, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.Weeks of intensive U.S. diplomatic efforts to revive the direct talks between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have failed to produce a breakthrough -- casting a shadow over one of the Obama administration's chief foreign policy goals.The Palestinians want Israel to stop building on land where they aim to found an independent state, including areas in and around East Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 war.Abbas and Netanyahu held three rounds of direct talks in September but the Palestinians withdrew from the negotiations three weeks later when a 10-month, partial Israeli freeze on settlement building expired.Washington has offered Netanyahu a package of inducements to persuade him to extend the moratorium by 90 days, but has not provided the written guarantees Israel wanted to back that up.

Clinton, who was in Bahrain to attend a security conference, urged Arab states to step up their own support of the peace process, and in particular financial support for the fledgling Palestinian Authority as it tries to equip itself to become a full government.They are building the institutions necessary for a viable, independent state that can provide security, law and order, and essential services to the Palestinian people, Clinton said. This, too, is part of creating the conditions for peace and realizing the Palestinian people's legitimate aspirations, and regional states in particular have a vital role to play.(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Syria tells U.N. atom body: focus on Israel, not us By Sylvia Westall and Fredrik Dahl – Fri Dec 3, 12:13 pm ET

VIENNA (Reuters) – Syria dismissed on Friday calls to grant U.N. nuclear inspectors prompt access to the remains of a suspected nuclear site bombed to rubble by Israel, saying they should focus their investigation on the Jewish state instead.Damascus's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Washington's suggestion that the IAEA could seek broader inspection powers to enable it to examine sites in Syria was nonsense and he did not believe it was likely.I think it is an agenda which some countries are pursuing, Bassam Al-Sabbagh told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board.It is the time for dialogue and cooperation which is going on between Syria and the agency.For more than two years Syria has blocked IAEA access to the remains of a facility in the desert which U.S. intelligence reports say was a nascent North Korean-designed nuclear reactor intended to produce bomb fuel.The site, known as either al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, was bombed to pieces by Israel in 2007. Syria, an ally of Iran, denies ever having had an atom bomb program.The IAEA visited it in 2008 but wants follow-up access to take samples from the remains which could help its probe.Washington hinted again on Friday that the IAEA may need to consider invoking its special inspection mechanism to give it authority to look anywhere necessary in Syria at short notice if Damascus did not cooperate with the agency's requests.Absent that cooperation, the United States believes the (IAEA) board will have little choice but to consider appropriate action, U.S. envoy Glyn Davies said. He said countries needed to take steps in the coming months to preserve the credibility of the IAEA and the international safeguards regime.

SPECIAL INSPECTION?

Earlier this year the IAEA gave some weight to suspicions of illicit nuclear work at Dair Alzour, saying that uranium traces found during the last visit pointed to nuclear-related activity.In a report last month IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said Syria was not allowing inspectors to visit numerous suspect sites and had provided scant or inconsistent information about its atomic activities.Amano said on Thursday he had urged Syria in a letter to provide his inspectors with prompt access to Dair Alzour, which Damascus says is a non-nuclear military site.But Al-Sabbagh said the IAEA should turn its attention to Israeli sites. Syria has suggested the uranium traces came with Israeli munitions used in the attack.The IAEA says it is unlikely that they were of a type of uranium sometimes used in munitions as a hardening agent.

I think it is time now for the agency to visit the Israeli sites which were used for preparations for the attack ... it is time for the agency to move on the Israeli side,he said, when asked if Syria would grant the IAEA's request for access.Arab states as well as Iran say Israel poses a threat to regional stability, with its presumed atomic arsenal -- the only Middle East country to have such arms. Israel neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear weapons.Highlighting growing Western frustration, the European Union told the IAEA meeting it had deep concern over Syria's stance.The IAEA has struggled to get Syria to open up because the country's basic safeguards treaty with the agency covers only its one declared atomic facility, an old research reactor.Diplomats and analysts believe the IAEA will avoid escalating the dispute at a time of rising tension with Iran, which the West suspects of seeking nuclear weapons.The agency last resorted to special inspection powers in 1993 in North Korea, which still withheld access and later developed a nuclear bomb capacity in secret.(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Mideast prays for rain as weather threatens drought
by Fanny Carrier – Fri Dec 3, 12:00 pm ET


NICOSIA (AFP) – Israeli firefighters are battling a deadly forest fire as unseasonably warm weather blankets a tinder dry Middle East, and some countries are even organising prayers for rain.Thousands of Israeli firemen and rescuers fought to put out the fire on the second day running, as international help poured in to battle the country's worst ever inferno that has killed at least 41 people.The blaze, driven by high winds, was threatening the northern port of Haifa a day after it incinerated more than 10,000 acres (over 4,000 hectares) of land in the Carmel mountains.Israel's Meteorological Service said temperatures would remain hot and dry well into the evening. In Haifa, the mercury was at 31 degrees Celsius (87 Fahrenheit) for the second day.Drought has plagued Israel and the Palestinian territories for several weeks and rainfall over the past five years has been under average levels.A mere 7 millimetres (0.27 inches) of rain fell on Jerusalem in November, compared to an average of 60 mm in the past few years.Parched conditions in the Holy Land have prompted Christians, Jews and Muslims to join ranks to pray for divine intervention.In the desert kingdom of Jordan, residents gathered on Thursday to recite the special prayer known as Salat al-Istisqa -- a ritual practised since the time of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.The ministry of religious affairs encouraged the special prayers across the kingdom -- one of the 10 most water-impoverished countries in the world.The ministry even asked people to fast for three days ahead of Thursday prayers, and step up devotion and charity work.Jordan, where 92 percent of the land is desert, depends mainly on rain to meet its needs.

But five successive years of below-average rainfall has created a shortfall of 500 million cubic metres (17.7 billion cubic feet) a year -- nearly a third of its water needs, according to the water ministry.Lebanon too is suffering from drought, with only 51.2 millimetres (2.05 inches) of rain since September, drastically down from 214.8 millimetres during the same period last year, the meteorology bureau says.The last rainfall in Lebanon was more than a month ago, leading to a severe water shortage that has forced citizens to purchase water on a daily basis.Muslim religious leaders are also banking on divine intervention and have called on the Lebanese to pray on Friday for rain -- in a country blessed with abundant water resources that are the envy of its neighbours.A group of young people planned on gathering in a central district of Beirut on Friday to perform a traditional rain dance; other Lebanese chose another day at the beach.The delayed rainfall is threatening some of our major springs, in which water is becoming increasingly scarce, said Fouad Hashweh, dean of the Faculty of Science at the Lebanese American University.The agriculture ministry said wheat crops were at risk. And one of our biggest concerns is that recurrent drought year after year... can lead to desertification, said the Lebanese ministry's director general, Ali Yassin. The eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus too is basking in unusually warm daytime temperatures for December of around 28 degrees Celsius while rainfall in November had been virtually zero.November saw inland and coastal temperatures between five and seven degrees above normal while at higher altitudes they were up to 10 degrees higher, officials said.What concerns us is that the days with high temperatures are continuous, Marios Theofilou of the meteorology service told the Cyprus Mail. A report by the European Environment Agency has predicted longer-lasting droughts that will eventually lead to the desertification of Cyprus.Across the sea in Syria, the authorities adopted as far back as June emergency measures for the drought-hit northeast of the country.

Hamas: No al-Qaida in Gaza but local zealots grow By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press – Thu Dec 2, 3:43 pm ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza's Hamas prime minister was adamant: There is no al-Qaida presence in Gaza, he said, rebuffing what he portrayed as Israeli allegations meant to justify military action against the territory.At the same time, a new homegrown crop of zealots — even if only inspired by the global terror network — is increasingly turning into a problem for Gaza's ruling Islamic militants.Dismissing Hamas as too tame, Muslim firebrands have challenged the Gaza government's informal truce with Israel — in place since Israel's bruising offensive against Gaza two years ago — by sporadically firing rockets at Israeli border communities. Israel says they also planned to try to cross into neighboring Egypt to use it as a springboard for attacks against Israelis and foreigners.Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, speaking at a rare news conference for foreign reporters on Wednesday, suggested that claims of an al-Qaida foothold are part of an Israeli attempt to further discredit the group already shunned by much of the world and to perhaps justify action against Gaza in the framework of the global war against terror.There is no such thing as al-Qaida in Gaza,Haniyeh insisted.The Palestinian resistance does not work outside the borders of Palestine.Hamas remains firmly in control of Gaza, the territory it seized in a violent takeover in 2007. Its radical challengers, known as Jihadi Salafis, are estimated to number only a few hundred armed men in several small groups, according to experts.These groups preach global jihad, or holy war and adhere to a form of Islam even more conservative than that of Hamas. While al-Qaida's battle is against the West at large, Hamas says its sole target is Israel.In recent months, Islamic radicals have targeted Internet cafes as dens of vice, attacked Christian institutions and kidnapped several foreign journalists, often without Hamas blessing. A Gaza mosque shootout between Hamas forces and Salafis in August 2009 left 26 dead.

There is also cooperation. The Army of Islam — one of the main al-Qaida-inspired groups — had a hand, along with Hamas, in the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006.The Salafis, who castigate Hamas for failing to impose Islamic law and for suspending attacks on Israel, are a potential magnet for Gazans dissatisfied with their rulers. And Hamas could find itself the target of crushing retaliation if Salafis ever manage to carry out a major attack.Israel says the threat is very real. And Egyptian officials say in the first week of November, they arrested 25 sympathizers of the Army of Islam.Last month, Israel killed three members of the Army of Islam in separate airstrikes, alleging at the time that the men planned to attack Israeli and American targets in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.A senior Israeli military official told The Associated Press this week that several Gaza gunmen from that cell are still hiding in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, which borders Gaza. He said it wasn't clear whether the cell planned to kidnap Israeli tourists in the Sinai or use Egypt as a gateway to infiltrate into Israel to carry out attacks there.The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with briefing regulations, also alleged that hundreds of militants, mainly from Yemen and including some trained by al-Qaida, have sneaked into Gaza through smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt. He said Gaza militants have also gotten military training in Sudan and Yemen.

Israeli government officials declined to comment on these issues, deferring to the military.Earlier this year, a study by a U.S. think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Gaza's Salafis are inspired by, but not formally affiliated with, al-Qaida.Commentators on websites affiliated with al-Qaida have urged Hamas and the Gaza Salafis to set aside their differences. An article on one of the sites said the leaders of al-Qaida are not interested in these groups because they are small, divided and scattered.Hamas has traditionally focused on its conflict with Israel. Pledged to Israel's destruction, it has carried out scores of suicide bombings and other attacks over the years, killing hundreds. However, the Islamists have rejected the idea of global jihad. And in recent years, some in Hamas, including its supreme leader, Syrian-based Khaled Mashaal, have softened their rhetoric and said they would not object to a Palestinian state alongside Israel after years of total rejection.In an apparent attempt at damage control, Haniyeh sent a letter to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, assuring him that Palestinian militants are not active outside Gaza's borders.Another senior Hamas official, Ayman Taha, told The Associated Press last week that Hamas was informed by Egypt that some groups are trying to operate in the northern Sinai.We assured them (the Egyptians) clearly and explicitly that we will not allow anyone to take advantage of Gaza as a gateway to tamper with Egyptian national security and will not allow anyone to enter from Egypt to Gaza, or vice versa,he said.Hamas has had a strained relationship with Egypt, but cannot afford to alienate a key conduit to the Arab world and possibly the West.Hamas officials said they are trying to rein in the renegades, using mostly persuasion these days.We talked with those who fired rockets in the past few days and asked them not to give the enemy a pretext for future aggression,said Taha, referring to about a dozen rockets and mortars fired in response to last month's Israeli air strikes.

UN seeks 575 million dollars for Palestinians
– Thu Dec 2, 12:52 pm ET


GENEVA (AFP) – Millions of Palestinians are living in precarious conditions and need help to survive, the United Nations said Thursday, as it sought 575 million dollars for them in 2011.Despite recent improvements in the situation in the Gaza Strip, things are not improving for the 4.5 million people who live in the Palestinian Territories, said Maxwell Gaylard, UN deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.This is because of the continued blockade of Gaza, the occupation itself and the settlements,he said.Gaylard noted that the easing of the Israeli blockade in June has led to a slight improvement of the situation in the Gaza Strip.

However, three-quarters of Gaza residents are still depending on relief agencies, noted the UN official.While unemployment has declined somewhat, it remains at disastrous levels, he said.In the West Bank, the situation is not much better, while in east Jerusalem there is a growing problem of over population.The UN's appeal for aid financing for the Palestinian Territories was 50 percent funded, but this year Gaylard hopes donors would be more generous.If the appeal is not financed, it would have irreversible consequences for the process of reconstruction and the quality of life of Palestinians, said Ramesh Rajasingham, an official from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said.

Israel approves more E. Jerusalem settlement housing: Ynet
– Wed Dec 1, 4:00 pm ET


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli authorities on Wednesday authorised construction of another 625 homes for Jewish residents in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, local news site Ynet reported.An interior ministry planning committee approved construction of the homes in Pisgat Zeev, on the city's northeastern edge, after a two-year delay during which committee-ordered amendments were incorporated into the plan, Ynet said.

The ministry spokeswoman could not be reached for confirmation.If confirmed, the plan is sure to stoke more Palestinian anger.In a message to the United Nations on Monday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned that Israel's settlement of occupied territories had become a time bomb that could destroy peace hopes at any moment.On the same day, the Jerusalem city council approved 130 new Jewish homes in Gilo, also in east Jerusalem, drawing an immediate protest from Palestinian officials.Israeli refusal to extend a 10-month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank, which ended in late September, led to the breakdown of direct peace talks with the Palestinians that had only resumed three weeks earlier.Abbas has said he will not return to talks without a new freeze that includes east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for the capital of their promised state.Abbas said on Wednesday he was expecting to formally hear the outcome of US efforts to secure a new freeze within a day.We still haven't received an official US response, but we may get one officially on Thursday, Abbas told reporters as he inaugurated a new building at his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.

Report saying Western Wall not holy to Jews is cut By DIAA HADID, Associated Press – Wed Dec 1, 11:57 am ET

JERUSALEM – The Palestinian Authority has removed a report from a government website claiming that Jerusalem's Western Wall isn't holy to Jews, officials said Wednesday, after it provoked furious reactions from the U.S. and Israel.The essay, written by a top official in the Palestinian Information Ministry, has become the latest source of contention between the Israelis and Palestinians and highlighted the sensitivities over Jerusalem. Resolving the conflicting claims to the holy city is the most explosive issue in peace talks.A senior Palestinian official denied the report was taken down because of pressure. Instead, he said it was done because it does not reflect our position. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.In the report, Deputy Information Minister Al-Mutawakil Taha claimed the Western Wall was not connected to the biblical Jewish Temples — contradicting centuries of archaeological evidence and one of Judaism's most fundamental principles.In an interview with The Associated Press Wednesday, Taha stood by his claims, insisting they were backed up by his own independent research and two committees that looked into riots at the Western Wall when the British ruled what was then mandatory Palestine.I'm not against the Jews. But ... the research says it's for Muslims, not for Jews, he said.The Western Wall is the holiest place where Jews can pray. It is a retaining wall of the compound where the biblical Temples stood 2,000 years ago. The Al-Aqsa compound, Islam's third-holiest site, is built atop its ruins.

The report, echoing similar claims by Palestinian leaders and religious authorities over the years, caused an uproar in Israel, with leaders saying that such sentiments prove the Palestinians are not prepared to reach peace with the Jewish state.In a parliamentary speech Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the report was a testing point for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who also is known as Abu Mazen.I say to Abu Mazen: Condemn this phenomenon,he said.Turn to your people and tell them: There is a Jewish people here. They have been living here for close to 4,000 years. We recognize this people. We recognize their historic connection to this land and this city.The U.S. State Department on Tuesday called the report factually incorrect, insensitive and highly provocative.We have repeatedly raised with the Palestinian Authority leadership the need to consistently combat all forms of delegitimization of Israel, including denying historic Jewish connections to the land, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, including the Old City, which is home to the Western Wall, as well as other Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, as the capital of their future state.
The two sides have never reached a formula on how they would share the holy sites in the walled Old City.Palestinians have consistently claimed that Jews have no historical religious attachment to Jerusalem, in defiance of archaeological finds, in an attempt to counter Israel's claims to the city.Israel's government does not deny Muslim claims to Jerusalem, but has tried to make it harder to hand over the eastern part of the city to Palestinians by annexing it and building Jewish neighborhoods there, home today to about 200,000 Israelis. Palestinians consider the neighborhoods to be illegal settlements.

Hamas would honor referendum on peace with Israel
By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Wed Dec 1, 8:09 am ET


GAZA (Reuters) – The Islamist Hamas movement, whose charter advocates the elimination of Israel, would accept the outcome of a Palestinian referendum on a future peace treaty with the Jewish state, its Gaza leader said on Wednesday.Ismail Haniyeh, addressing a rare news conference in the Israeli-blockaded enclave, signaled a softening of Hamas's long-standing position prohibiting the ceding of any part of the land of what was British-mandated Palestine until 1948.We accept a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the resolution of the issue of refugees, Haniyeh said, referring to the year of Middle East war in which Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.Hamas will respect the results (of a referendum) regardless of whether it differs with its ideology and principles, he said, provided it included all Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora.The Hamas charter, drafted in 1988, regards all of the land of Palestine, including what is now Israel, as the heritage of Muslims. The idea of a referendum on a future peace accord with Israel was rejected by some Hamas leaders when it was proposed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas several months ago.Negotiations between Abbas and Israel have since faltered over Israel's refusal to halt settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

NO AL QAEDA HERE

Haniyeh said Israel was not willing to give the Palestinians a fully sovereign state and he therefore had no hope the fragile U.S.- brokered attempts to revive peacemaking would succeed.He said his movement was willing to cooperate with Western and European countries who want to help the Palestinian people regain their rights. The United States and European Union shun Hamas as a terrorist organization and do not recognize its Gaza authority.We urge European foreign ministers to revise their position regarding meetings with the elected government, Haniyeh said, adding that contacts were being made with United Nations officials in the Gaza Strip in this regard.Haniyeh denied Israel's claim to have killed three members of the al Qaeda organization in Gaza in the past month.Israel said two of three militants it killed in November were planning attacks against Israeli and western tourists in the Egyptian territory of Sinai.He said a priority of his government was to avoid a military escalation with Israel by persuading other militant factions to preserve a de facto ceasefire.Hamas had repeatedly distanced itself from al Qaeda and had not hesitated to condemn al Qaeda-claimed attacks in some Arab and western capitals, he noted.(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Samia Nakhoul)