Israel's Gaza pointman reinstated after apology to Olmert Wed Feb 25, 1:28 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Amos Gilad was reinstated as Israel's pointman for Gaza truce talks on Wednesday after he apologised to Ehud Olmert for his sharp criticism of the outgoing prime minister.The remarks were unjustified, were said in error and it would have been better if they had not been said, Gilad said, according to the prime minister's office.Last week he lashed out at Olmert for linking the Egyptian-mediated truce talks to the release of a captive Israeli soldier.On Sunday Olmert removed Gilad from his duties, but following the apology, he told him: I intend to bring this matter to an immediate close.An official close to Olmert later confirmed that Gilad would resume his functions as pointman in the truce negotiations.Olmert had faced criticism that firing Gilad would hamper efforts to conclude a long-lasting truce with the Islamist Hamas group following the Gaza war in December and January.Gilad said last week that insisting at the last moment on freedom for Shalit as a condition for a ceasefire to take effect risked alienating key ally and mediator Egypt.Gilad is an experienced senior defence ministry official who clinched a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas in June.He has been shuttling between Israel and Egypt for weeks to try to forge a lasting truce to replace January 18 ceasefires that ended Israel's 22-day military onslaught but have been repeatedly strained by tit-for-tat attacks.More than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the war.
Netanyahu turns to the right to form Israel coalition By Joseph Nasr FEB 25,09
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish Likud party launched talks on Wednesday with right-wing parties on forming Israel's next government after he failed in initial efforts to enlist his main centrist rival in a broad coalition.
Netanyahu, who has said he wants to shift the focus of Palestinian statehood talks from territorial to economic issues, was chosen on Friday by President Shimon Peres to try to form a government and become prime minister for the second time.Likud negotiators met officials of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman and other right-wing factions later near Tel Aviv on terms for political partnership in a governing coalition.A spokeswoman for Lieberman said he would push to secure either the defense, finance or foreign affairs portfolio for himself. She said the party also wants the justice and internal security portfolios.Yisrael Beiteinu, which came in third after the centrist Kadima party and the Likud in a February 10 election, opposes Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank.It advocates trading land in Israel where Arab citizens live for Jewish settlements in the West Bank in any peace deal with Palestinians and calls for all Israelis to take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state.A narrow right-wing government and a prominent role for Lieberman could put Netanyahu on a collision course with Washington, where the Obama administration has pledged swift pursuit of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.Likud spokeswoman Dina Libster denied Israeli media reports that Netanyahu had ruled out appointing Lieberman as defense minister and would offer him either the finance or foreign affairs portfolios.Ministerial appointments were not on the agenda today,Libster said.
U.S. DIPLOMACY
Amid the Israeli coalition-building, Hillary Clinton will make her first visit to Israel and the West Bank as U.S. secretary of state next week, Israeli officials said.President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, was due to precede her on Thursday.Netanyahu has asked Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister and its chief negotiator with Palestinians, to join him in a broad coalition government. She has so far refused but the two were expected to hold further talks on Friday.Kadima wants guarantees from Netanyahu that his new government would engage in U.S.-backed talks with the Palestinians with the aim of achieving a Palestinian state, officials from Livni's party said.Gideon Sa'ar, a lawmaker who heads Likud's negotiating team, declined to say whether it would accept Kadima's demand.Under the mandate Netanyahu received from Peres on February 20, he has 42 days to form a government. Netanyahu served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999.(Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Editing by Diana Abdallah)
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza after rocket fire Wed Feb 25, 7:45 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli warplanes launched two air strikes along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt on Wednesday as delegates from three Palestinian factions were crossing at a nearby terminal, witnesses said.They said the two air strikes left large craters and caused damage to surrounding homes near the border, where smugglers operate a massive underground network of tunnels to supply goods to the besieged territory.There were no immediate reports of anyone killed or wounded.An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that two air strikes had been carried out in the area.Palestinian militants had earlier fired two crude homemade rockets into southern Israel without causing any casualties, according to the military.
Delegations from the Islamic Jihad group and two factions from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) headed by the Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas were crossing into Egypt at the time of the Israeli raid.The delegations were to attend talks in Cairo aimed at reconciling the feuding factions. Abbas's Fatah party and Hamas have been bitterly divided since the Islamist movement seized control of Gaza in June 2007.Israel launched hundreds of air strikes on the smuggling tunnels during its war on Gaza last month that left more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead before coming to a halt on January 18.
Syria has built missile facility at suspect site: diplomats Wed Feb 25, 5:54 am ET
VIENNA (AFP) – Syria has told the UN nuclear watchdog that a suspect site bombed by Israeli planes in 2007 is now a missile facility, diplomats close to the IAEA revealed Wednesday.The head of Syria's Atomic Energy Commission, Ibrahim Othman, made the revelation to a closed-door briefing of the International Atomic Energy Agency late Tuesday, diplomats who attended the meeting told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.The US alleges the remote desert site, known alternatively as Al-Kibar or Dair Alzour, had been a covert nuclear reactor being built with North Korea's help and very near completion, until it was razed to the ground by Israeli bombers in September 2007.But Damascus has consistently rejected the claims, maintaining it was a disused military facility.Soon after the bombing, Syria levelled the site and built a new structure there that resembled the former main building.IAEA inspectors visited Al-Kibar last June, but have so far declined to reveal the nature of the new building, even when pressed on the issue by member states late last year.It was Othman, who revealed the nature of the site at a preparatory briefing Tuesday ahead of the IAEA's March board meeting next week, diplomats said.Last year, the watchdog said a significant number of particles of man-made uranium had been found at Al-Kibar.And in a report last week, it revealed that even more unexplained man-made uranium had turned up in the samples taken from the site which would require a clear explanation on the part of Syria has to how it got there.In the past, Damascus has argued that the uranium could have come from the Israeli bombs which flattened Al-Kibar.But the IAEA has effectively ruled out such an explanation.
Israel's Peres ushers in right-leaning parliament By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer – Tue Feb 24, 12:25 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's president ushered in a right-leaning parliament Tuesday and gave lawmakers a tall order: conclude an elusive peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of their term.Shimon Peres delivered his appeal just days after selecting the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu to form a coalition government following this month's national election.Netanyahu can easily put together a government of lawmakers who oppose the sweeping territorial concessions that would be necessary for a deal.But a government of nationalist and religious hard-liners could put Israel sharply at odds with the Obama administration, which wants to aggressively pursue an end to 60 years of Mideast conflict. Next week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make her first visit since taking office. Top Mideast envoy George Mitchell will make a second trip this week.Netanyahu has been approaching centrist parties in an effort to give his new government greater stability and a moderate face that the international community would more easily accept. He has six weeks to form a government.
At the swearing-in ceremony of the 18th Knesset, or parliament, Peres told lawmakers that peace with the Palestinians would be recognized as regional peace with all of Israel's neighbors. It was time, he said, to put war aside.We countered fire with fire, yet the cessation of violence should be concluded through negotiations. Negotiations with the Palestinians need to continue until an accord will be found, he said. We don't want to rule over another people, and we don't want another people to rule over us.The 120 lawmakers elected Feb. 10 then took the oath of office.The centrist Kadima Party, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, won 28 seats, one more than Netanyahu's Likud. However, Peres appointed Netanyahu to put together the next government because he has the support of a majority of the elected lawmakers.Both Kadima and the smaller, dovish Labor Party have so far spurned Netanyahu's offer to join his government.Livni is key to a broad-based government because of her party's size. But after meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, she said the two had deep disagreements regarding talks with the Palestinians. She has also said she would refuse to serve as a fig leaf for a government that did not promote peace.Should Netanyahu fail to bring moderates into his government, his major partner will be Avigdor Lieberman's ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, which wants to redraw Israel's borders to put large concentrations of Israeli Arabs under Palestinian jurisdiction and have those who remain sign loyalty oaths to the Jewish state or lose their citizenship.
Another partner would be the small, religious National Union Party. After the swearing-in ceremony, party lawmaker Michael Ben Ari derided Peres for using the occasion to talk about the illusion of two states for two peoples. This phrase is a disaster,he said.In his remarks to the Knesset, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert echoed Peres' vision of tranquility. It is my wish that this Knesset will witness peace and security for the state or Israel, he said.He also wished the legislature something his government did not enjoy — a full four-year term.Olmert is trying to use his last weeks in office to reach a long-term truce with Gaza Strip militants and bring home a soldier held by Gaza's ruling Hamas movement for nearly three years.A truce deal has implications beyond cementing the informal Jan. 18 cease-fire that ended Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza. Without it, there is little chance of advancing already troubled talks to reconcile feuding Palestinian factions who maintain rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel president urges Europeans to shun Hamas Tue Feb 24, 7:14 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday urged Europeans to shun Hamas, telling the European parliament's president that the Islamists who rule Gaza are a murderous terrorist group.Europeans must understand that Hamas is a dangerous and murderous terrorist organisation and must stop immediately showing any sympathy and support as this attitude prevents the continuation of the peace process, Peres told Hans-Gert Poettering.Poettering on Monday led delegation of European parliamentarians to the Gaza Strip, which was devastated by a 22-day Israeli military offensive in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed.Following his visit, the European official expressed grave concern about the situation in the Palestinian enclave that is reeling under an Israeli blockade imposed after Hamas seized power in June 2007.We have to help the people of Gaza by opening the borders, while preventing Hamas from arming again. We are in favour of peace and resolutely against war and terrorism, he said.EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was also scheduled to visit Gaza later this week as part of a Middle East tour aimed at helping consolidate the ceasefires that ended Israel's war on Gaza on January 18.
European and US officials had generally stayed away from the Gaza Strip for years, but several have travelled to the impoverished territory since the end of the Israeli offensive.Influential US Senator John Kerry and two other Democratic US congressmen last week visited the war-shattered coastal strip.The EU, the United States and Israel all blacklist Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Palestinians ask Obama to press Israel to halt demolitions Mon Feb 23, 12:27 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – The Palestinian Authority urged the US president on Monday to press Israel to scrap a plan to raze almost 90 homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem.We call on President Barack Obama to intervene personally to have this project stopped, said Yasser Abed Rabbo, one of the main aides of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.The Palestinian owners of 88 houses in the Silwan neighbourhood have received eviction notices saying that the structures will be destroyed because they were built or expanded without the necessary permits. The move would affect about 1,500 people.It is a massacre that Israel will commit in this Holy City, Abed Rabbo told a news conference, calling for urgent Arab and international action to halt this dangerous project.He said some of the houses affected by the orders had been built before Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War.He called for a day-long strike in east Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank to protest against the plan.The Gulf Cooperation Council, which groups the six Gulf Arab states, backed the call for US intervention to stop what it called these racist acts that defy human rights and international law.This is a dangerous step taken within the Zionist entity's strategy to change the demographic reality in Jerusalem, signalling the occupier's attempts to turn the city Jewish, the grouping's secretary general Abdulrahman al-Attiya said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.Silwan, which abuts the Old City of Jerusalem, is home to 10,000 Palestinians.Sixty Jewish families also live in the neighbourhood around the City of David archaeological park which Israeli authorities say was the capital of the ancient Israelite kingdom.Israel, which considers the whole of Jerusalem its eternal, undivided capital rarely grants building permits to Arab residents of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want to make the capital of their promised state.According to the Israeli B'Tselem human rights organisation, Israeli authorities have demolished some 350 houses in east Jerusalem since 2004, saying that they were built without permits.
Al Qaeda's Zawahri tells Hamas don't accept truce Mon Feb 23, 5:43 am ET
DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda's second-in-command urged Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip not to succumb to Arab pressure for a truce with Israel and vowed to support fighting against the Jewish state.The militant leader in a recording posted on the Internet on Monday also called on Muslims in Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia to press ahead with fighting crusaders -- a term used to denote the West -- and their agents.Israel's Arab aides are trying to impose a calm (truce) on the people of Gaza to stop their jihad ... I tell our brothers and folk in Gaza that jihad to liberate Palestine and all Islamic land should not stop, Ayman al-Zawahri said.Egypt has been negotiating a truce between Hamas, which controls Gaza, and Israel following an Israeli offensive late in December in the coastal strip to punish Hamas for firing rockets at Israeli towns. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed.I reaffirm to our brothers the fighters in Gaza and everywhere that the mujahideen against crusaders in various battle zones are willing to give their brothers in Gaza and everywhere training and preparation, said Zawahri.Without naming Hamas, which al Qaeda has often criticized for dropping suicide bombings to play a political role, Zawahri advised the Islamist group against blending with non-Islamist factions under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas's Fatah movement is the largest of 11 groups that constitute the PLO, which in the early 1990s signed peace accords with Israel that aim to establish a Palestinian state.Talk of fixing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is futile, said Zawahri.The PLO is a secular entity that does not uphold Islamic law and it is the entity that dropped jihad from its covenant.Hamas has said Egypt will host reconciliation talks between Palestinian factions on Wednesday.The Egyptian militant leader also urged Somalis not to fall for a secular constitution and said militants there will not drop their weapons and fight the U.S.-made government.Somalia's new President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed earlier this month selected the Western-educated son of a murdered former leader to be prime minister in a power-sharing government intended to end civil conflict in the Horn of Africa nation.Zawahri praised what he described as an increasing jihadist awakening in the Arabian Peninsula and called on Yemeni tribes to follow the example of Afghan tribes in fighting U.S. influence in the central Asian country.In his recording Zawahri also urged Afghans to rally around the Taliban militant, al Qaeda's key ally in Afghanistan, to drive away U.S.-led forces.(Reporting by Inal Ersan; Editing by Matthew Jones)
Four dead in Gaza tunnel collapse Sun Feb 22, 7:55 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Four Palestinians were killed on Sunday when a tunnel used for smuggling between the Gaza Strip and Egypt collapsed on top of them, medics said.The victims were between the ages of 17 and 25, they said. The tunnels were thought to have collapsed after torrential downpours that hit the region over the last several days.Smuggling tunnels have mushroomed along the Gaza-Egypt border since June 2006, when Gaza militants seized an Israeli soldier in a deadly cross-border raid.Since then, the enclave's border crossings with Israel have remained largely closed, as has the one at Rafah with Egypt -- the only one that bypasses the Jewish state.The tunnels are used to smuggle supplies into the territory that Israel has largely sealed off to all but humanitarian aid since Hamas seized control there in June 2007.The Israelis say they are also used to smuggle weapons.
2 rockets fired from Lebanon toward Israel By HUSSEIN DAKROUB, Associated Press Writer – Sat Feb 21, 2:47 pm ET
BEIRUT – Two rockets were fired from southern Lebanon toward northern Israel Saturday, triggering an Israeli response and raising fears of renewed hostilities on the tense border.Lebanese leaders rushed to condemn the rocket attack and vowed not to allow southern Lebanon to become a launch pad for attacks against the Jewish state.The brief cross-border exchange was the third this year. Israel and the militant group Hezbollah fought a brutal 34-day war in the region in 2006. More than 1,200 people in Lebanon — most of them civilians — and 159 in Israel died in the conflict.It was not immediately known who fired the two rockets Saturday, and no group accepted responsibility.One rocket slammed into a mostly Christian Arab village, causing minor injuries to at least one Israeli.Lebanese security officials said the rockets were fired from the Mansouri and al-Qulaila areas near the coastal town of Naqoura. Officials with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon said the second rocket fell short, landing in Lebanon.An Israeli army spokesman said a woman was injured and the military responded to the rockets. He would not specify the kind of response, but Lebanese security officials said Israel responded by firing at least six shells on villages in the area where the rockets had been launched.No injuries were reported. The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.Lebanese President Michel Suleiman condemned the rocket attack, saying he would not allow southern Lebanon to become a rocket launching pad against Israel. In a statement released by his office, Suleiman said the firing of rockets on Israel posed a challenge to the Lebanese government.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said in a statement that the rockets fired from south Lebanon threatened security and stability in the region and violated a U.N. resolution that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war. He also called Israel's retaliation an unjustified violation of Lebanese sovereignty.The Israeli military said the Lebanese government and military were responsible for preventing such attacks.
Saniora called on the army and U.N. peacekeepers to step up patrols and coordination in order to prevent such incidents.The head of the 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force deployed along with Lebanese troops along the border, Maj. Gen. Claudio Graziano, contacted senior military commanders in Lebanon and Israel and called for maximum restraint.Troops from the U.N. force, known as UNIFIL, and the Lebanese army located the rocket launch site and are continuing intensive patrols throughout the area, UNIFIL said.Israeli paramedics in Jerusalem said one rocket landed in northern Israel, causing minor injuries to three people who were taken to a hospital.The rocket exploded in a mostly Christian, Arab village in the Galilee region, leaving a large groove in the ground next to a house. Drops of what appeared to be dried blood were sprayed on the pavement and shrapnel smashed through a kitchen window, filling the sink with glass.I was sleeping when I heard something like a bomb, resident Masad, who did not give his last name, told AP Television News. I got up and saw something unbelievable — a katyusha, referring to the type of rockets generally used by militant groups in south Lebanon.Around half of the residents of Israel's hilly Galilee area are Arabs, most of them ethnic Palestinians.
The militant Hezbollah group has a large rocket arsenal but is not believed to have used them against Israel since their 2006 war. It has denied involvement in recent rocket attacks on Israel. Hezbollah officials refused to comment on Saturday's rocket attack. But local television stations reported that Hezbollah denied it was responsible for the rocket firing. Rockets from Lebanon have been fired into Israel on two occasions during Israel's Gaza offensive last month. Palestinian militant groups are suspected of launching them. The Syria-based radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — General Command denied the group was responsible for Saturday's rocket attack and urged Lebanese authorities to find those who was responsible for the incident.Associated Press Writer Diaa Hadid contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
