Lulua
24-12-2002, 04:27
Assalaamu alaikum.
The latest in the Israeli war agains terror...an 11 year old girl walking home from school. Those brave Israelis, they shot her in the back!!! Wonder what kind of a security threat SHE was???
Lulua.
----------
enlarge image
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Israel on Saturday, December 21 hailed its U.S. ally for blocking an international peace plan for the Middle East, as an 11-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed walking home from school in the Gaza Strip.
Hanin Abu Sitta was hit in the back by a bullet in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and died later in the hospital, Palestinian medical sources said.
However, Israeli media claimed she was struck down during a gun battle between troops and militants in the flashpoint town, notorious for its arms smugglers who smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt to Palestinian resistance groups, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
An Israeli army spokesman had no immediate comment on the death which brought the toll from more than two years of the Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation to 2,781, including 2,051 Palestinians - most of them women and children - and 681 Israelis.
While the violence flared, Israel and the Palestinians were again at odds over U.S. policies in the Middle East after Washington blocked the diplomatic quartet from immediately adopting a peace initiative.
Officials from the European Union, the United Nations and Russia on Friday heeded calls from fellow-quartet member Washington to postpone adoption of the peace plan until after Israeli national elections on January 28.
The quartet had been widely expected to finalize the plan, which calls for a Palestinian state by 2005 and guarantees for Israeli security, at a meeting Friday in Washington.
Though rebuffed, the E.U.s representatives at the meeting refused to admit they were dismayed and took comfort that U.S. President George W. Bush had not backed away from what aides say is his vision for a Palestinian state.
I do not say whether Im disappointed, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, representing the current European Union Presidency, told reporters Friday, December 20, after emerging from the White House.
The message from the president of the United States is very clear, he is dedicated to the two-state solution, he said.
In occupied Jerusalem, however, a diplomatic advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon noted satisfaction with the U.S. stance.
The U.S. position is logical because a roadmap would have no meaning without Israeli support, Zalman Shoval said Saturday, adding that new peace moves would have to be delayed until several weeks after the January 28 elections to let a new government to be formed.
Sharons right-wing caretaker government had strongly opposed several aspects of the roadmap, particularly a proposed freeze on the building of new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Palestinians: U.S. is Sharons Agent
For their part, the Palestinians reacted angrily to the news. Top negotiator Saeb Erakat blasted the United States for both stalling on the quartet initiative and vetoing a Syrian-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel.
These actions show clearly the (U.S.) administration has transformed itself into the electoral agent of Ariel Sharon, Erakat told AFP.
The Syrian-sponsored resolution put to the vote in the council Friday expressed grave concern at the killing by the Israeli occupying forces of several United Nations employees, including a Briton killed in a West Bank refugee camp on November 22.
Israel has come under heavy criticism for the deaths of at least five U.N. workers struck down in the midst of military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A full 12 of the 15 members of the Security Council - including the other four veto-wielding permanent members, Britain, China, France and Russia - all supported the resolution. Bulgaria and Cameroon abstained.
The Palestinian authority denounces this veto, that will allow Israel to continue to violate international resolutions, Palestinian human rights and the rights of international employees, Erakat said.
Gaza Dissection, Home Demolitions
On the ground, Israeli occupation army tops erected roadblocks, cutting the Gaza Strip into three sectors and barring all Palestinian traffic from using the territorys main north-south highway Saturday.
The Israeli army also made a new incursion into the central Gaza Strip city of Deir el-Balah, demolishing two homes and arresting two Palestinian suspected of membership in the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.
The army said the barriers were put on the highway near Deir el-Balah and further north near the illegal Jewish settlement of Netzarim for security reasons, after the murder Friday of a Jewish settler in an ambush claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
-IslamOnline (islamonline.net).
The latest in the Israeli war agains terror...an 11 year old girl walking home from school. Those brave Israelis, they shot her in the back!!! Wonder what kind of a security threat SHE was???
Lulua.
----------
enlarge image
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Israel on Saturday, December 21 hailed its U.S. ally for blocking an international peace plan for the Middle East, as an 11-year-old Palestinian girl was shot and killed walking home from school in the Gaza Strip.
Hanin Abu Sitta was hit in the back by a bullet in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and died later in the hospital, Palestinian medical sources said.
However, Israeli media claimed she was struck down during a gun battle between troops and militants in the flashpoint town, notorious for its arms smugglers who smuggle weapons across the border from Egypt to Palestinian resistance groups, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
An Israeli army spokesman had no immediate comment on the death which brought the toll from more than two years of the Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation to 2,781, including 2,051 Palestinians - most of them women and children - and 681 Israelis.
While the violence flared, Israel and the Palestinians were again at odds over U.S. policies in the Middle East after Washington blocked the diplomatic quartet from immediately adopting a peace initiative.
Officials from the European Union, the United Nations and Russia on Friday heeded calls from fellow-quartet member Washington to postpone adoption of the peace plan until after Israeli national elections on January 28.
The quartet had been widely expected to finalize the plan, which calls for a Palestinian state by 2005 and guarantees for Israeli security, at a meeting Friday in Washington.
Though rebuffed, the E.U.s representatives at the meeting refused to admit they were dismayed and took comfort that U.S. President George W. Bush had not backed away from what aides say is his vision for a Palestinian state.
I do not say whether Im disappointed, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, representing the current European Union Presidency, told reporters Friday, December 20, after emerging from the White House.
The message from the president of the United States is very clear, he is dedicated to the two-state solution, he said.
In occupied Jerusalem, however, a diplomatic advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon noted satisfaction with the U.S. stance.
The U.S. position is logical because a roadmap would have no meaning without Israeli support, Zalman Shoval said Saturday, adding that new peace moves would have to be delayed until several weeks after the January 28 elections to let a new government to be formed.
Sharons right-wing caretaker government had strongly opposed several aspects of the roadmap, particularly a proposed freeze on the building of new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Palestinians: U.S. is Sharons Agent
For their part, the Palestinians reacted angrily to the news. Top negotiator Saeb Erakat blasted the United States for both stalling on the quartet initiative and vetoing a Syrian-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution critical of Israel.
These actions show clearly the (U.S.) administration has transformed itself into the electoral agent of Ariel Sharon, Erakat told AFP.
The Syrian-sponsored resolution put to the vote in the council Friday expressed grave concern at the killing by the Israeli occupying forces of several United Nations employees, including a Briton killed in a West Bank refugee camp on November 22.
Israel has come under heavy criticism for the deaths of at least five U.N. workers struck down in the midst of military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A full 12 of the 15 members of the Security Council - including the other four veto-wielding permanent members, Britain, China, France and Russia - all supported the resolution. Bulgaria and Cameroon abstained.
The Palestinian authority denounces this veto, that will allow Israel to continue to violate international resolutions, Palestinian human rights and the rights of international employees, Erakat said.
Gaza Dissection, Home Demolitions
On the ground, Israeli occupation army tops erected roadblocks, cutting the Gaza Strip into three sectors and barring all Palestinian traffic from using the territorys main north-south highway Saturday.
The Israeli army also made a new incursion into the central Gaza Strip city of Deir el-Balah, demolishing two homes and arresting two Palestinian suspected of membership in the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.
The army said the barriers were put on the highway near Deir el-Balah and further north near the illegal Jewish settlement of Netzarim for security reasons, after the murder Friday of a Jewish settler in an ambush claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
-IslamOnline (islamonline.net).