Two Palestinians killed in West Bank fighting
Two Palestinian men were shot dead today in the northern West Bank, one in a gun battle with Israeli troops, the other allegedly shot by a Jewish settler in an olive grove.
Palestinians accused Jewish settlers of killing Hani Yousef, 22, as he was harvesting olives near his village, Aqraba. Another Palestinian farmer was shot and wounded by the settlers, who came from the nearby settlement of Itamar, according to the Palestinian mayor, Ghaled Mayadme.
Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the farmer’s death was being investigated, but no arrests had been made. The farmer had been shot in the back, he said.
In the Jenin Refugee Camp, also in the northern West Bank, Israeli troops killed Samer Jalamneh, a 22-year-old member of the radical Islamic Jihad movement, after he opened fire at them with an assault rifle, witnesses and the military said.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, speaking from the remnants of his Ramallah compound, accused the Israeli army of covering up settlers’ actions.
“The army is protecting their daily crimes against Palestinian residents in their homes and against Palestinian farmers,” Arafat said after a meeting with Jacob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of Red Cross, who is touring Israel and Palestinian areas this week.
Also, the Palestine Legislative Council gave Arafat another four weeks to appoint a new Cabinet, following the resignation of his previous Cabinet last month, Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said.
Arafat asked the legislature for an extension on his original two-week deadline to name a new Cabinet after Israeli troops besieged his Ramallah compound, destroying several buildings.
Palestinian reform plans were put on hold during the siege.
In Jerusalem, four Arab residents of the city’s traditionally Arab eastern sector, accused of helping bombers carry out three attacks that killed 35 people and wounded almost 200, went on trial amid a flood of insults from relatives of the Israeli victims.
Inside the courtroom, the four accused and their families were protected by riot police, who stood in a row facing the angry relatives of the victims. The accused, Wael Qassem, Wissam Abassi, Ala Abassi and Muhammed Oudeh, sat handcuffed to prison guards. The prisoners’ legs were also shackled.
The case is unusual because the accused are residents of east Jerusalem, annexed by Israel after its capture in the 1967 Mideast War.
Arabs in east Jerusalem regard themselves as Palestinians and support the Palestinian cause, but few have been involved in the Mideast violence over the past two years.
Because they live in Jerusalem, the accused have Israeli identity cards, which enabled them to move freely, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who are prevented from entering Israel.
On the political front, European Union envoys Javier Solana and Miguel Moratinos had meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials in an attempt to revive the peace process. Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan said he and the envoys were both trying to stop Palestinian bomb attacks inside Israel.
Israel’s Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told the European officials that statements by European leaders expressing sympathy for Arafat were not encouraging the emergence of a moderate leadership in the Palestinian Authority.
