Bush commends Sharon's war, redescribing him as 'a man of peace'
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 4/19/2002

US President George Bush has stressed he had received a timetable for the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Palestinian cities, but he did not talk about attaining progress in the mission of his secretary of state Colin Powell which lasted for ten days in the region.

Bush commended the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and once again described him as "a man of peace," but the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Oreikat strongly rejected Bush's description of Sharon, saying that this title is "an award for the state terrorism and the war crimes practiced by Sharon against the Palestinian people." UK Parliament member Gerald Kaufman had denounced Ariel Sharon as a "war criminal" the UK daily the Guardian reported.

While Bush was meeting with his secretary of state Collin Powell to be briefed on the results of his mission, the Israeli warplanes and Apache and F-16 planes were bombarding a village near Nablus and the bombardment resulted in killing three Palestinians. The Israeli occupation forces also broke into several villages in Jenin and Toulkarem areas and Abu Deis university near Jerusalem and started large scale inspection and mopping up operations.

News reports said that the Israeli forces which inspected the houses of these towns one by one, arrested more than 50 Palestinians and took them to unknown places, noting that the number of Palestinian detainees since the beginning of the invasion until now reached 7,000 detainees many of them are put in Atsyout camp in the Negev desert.

The Israeli defense minister Benjamin Bin Aliazer said that the Israeli forces will continue breaking in operations and the imposition of the siege on the Palestinian areas.

The spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry Jadoun Maer said that the Israeli forces totally destroyed Jenin camp but he denied that the Israeli forces had committed crimes. This was in reply to the UN special envoy in the region Terry Rod Larsen, who described what the Israeli occupation forces in Jenin camp after he had visited the camp as an "unbelievable crime."

People coming from the occupied Palestinian territories and experts at UNRWA said that they found in Jenin camp internationally banned weapons and bullets of 5 mm caliber used by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinians.

Jordanian medical sources said that one of the wounded who was admitted in one of the Jordanian hospitals was hit by a uranium depleted bullet.

The Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres said that the Israeli military operations will not solve the problem of the Palestinians.

Peres said in a statement to the Israeli radio that "our military operations in the West Bank will not solve the problem and we have to find a political outlet for this problem." Peres continued that the issue of the Nativity church which he described as very grave and called for lifting the siege from the Palestinian authority.

For his part the chairman of Jerusalem municipality Ehud Olmert admitted the failure of the security measures which are applied in Jerusalem in preventing the Palestinian resistance men from reaching set aims and carrying out operations inside the city.

Meantime, Palestinian sources on Thursday denied the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from Jenin camp in the West Bank and stressed that the camp is still under occupation and is under an Israeli siege. The Monte Carlo radio correspondent in the occupied Palestinian territories said that what the Israeli forces are doing is just a redeployment of some of its military vehicles in some parts of the camp from one place to another.

The European Union has supported the request of the Arab states that the UN Security Council adopt a resolution calling for the UN to investigate into the destruction carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in Jenin camp.

The spokesman for the European Commission for foreign affairs told journalists that there should be an international investigation to this effect and that the European Union will agree on that immediately. The Arab draft plan called for lifting the siege from the Nativity church in Bethlehem as well as the siege on Ramullah in the West Bank and it described what happened in Jenin camp as "massacres."

Previous Stories:
  Arab states call for trying Sharon, Ben Eliezer   (4/18/2002)
  Amnesty urges immediate humanitarian assistance for Jenin   (4/18/2002)
  Powell fails, conditions worse, Israel breaks to new Palestinians areas, Sharon stresses US understanding   (4/18/2002)
  World calls to put Sharon to trial   (4/17/2002)
  European leader: Israel is a terrorist state   (4/13/2002)

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