A tightened siege on Nablus
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 12/6/2001

The Israeli occupation forces on Wednesday continued their attacks against the Palestinians and tightened the siege on the Palestinian territories.

The Israeli forces randomly opened fire at farmers in Jenin and wounded many of them.

One Palestinian youth was wounded near Dour village, near Nablus when he was attacked by an israeli tank.

In Rafah the Palestinian youth Ayman al-Soufi ( 15 year old) was wounded when the Israeli soldiers opened fire at the houses in the military observatory towers.

Extremist settlers threw three explosives at the house of the local council member Atallah Mousa in Abu Senan village in the territories of 1948 and the explosion resulted in destroying a neighboring house.

Meantime, Palestinian officials said that the tightened siege on the city of Nablus resulted in depriving the city from fuels and basic food stuffs especially wheat.

Palestinian sources and foreign journalists stressed that the fuels expired totally from the fuel distribution stations and this will be a great obstacle for hospitals, in particular. Also amounts of stored wheat will be only enough for two days and some types of baby milk expires besides the strong shortage in medicines.

Meantime, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon renewed his demand for the Palestinian Authority to arrest activists of the national resistance and to solve all Palestinian organizations, claiming that he desires to reaching a political settlement.

The Palestinians retaliated by a suicide attack at the entrance of the Hilton hotel in occupied Jerusalem and this resulted in seriously wounding five Palestinians. The Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for the operation adding that the executor of the operation is Mahmoud Ali Ahmad Abu Sweid ( 46 year old) from " Rassas" village in Bethlehem district.

The Palestinian resistance men also opened fire at positions and barriers of the Israeli forces in Jenin.

At the political side, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority Yasser Arafat asked Sharon to give him more time to arrest the wanted activists of the Intifada, noting that so far the PA arrested 131 activists since the operations of Jerusalem and Haifa.

The founder of the Hamas movement who was placed under house arrest, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin said that the Palestinian resistance will not stop as far as the occupation continues the policy of killing and destruction of unarmed Palestinians, criticizing the arrest of Hamas and al-Jihad activists by the PA.

At the international level, the European Commission on Wednesday allotted USD 7.5 million as an urgent extra aids for the Palestinians, the victims of the current economic crisis as a result of the war against them by Israel A statements by the European Commission said that since October the conditions of the Palestinians in the west bank and Gaza have been deteriorated continuously.

For his part, the US President George Bush made two telephone calls with each of Sharon and Arafat in which he urged them to maintaining " cease fire and resume the negotiations."

Previous Stories:
  Israel kills five Palestinians, other hundreds wounded   (12/5/2001)
  Washington denies to have given Sharon the green-light to strike the Palestinians   (12/4/2001)
  Israeli forces bombard Gaza by gunboats, Apatchi, Jenin, Bethlehem by F 16 planes   (12/4/2001)

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