Barak calls for halting the uprising, allocates 300 million for settlement
Confrontations continued on Tuesday between the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation forces. On the uprising's 41st day more Palestinians were killed or wounded by the Israelis and an operation was recorded against an Israeli military boat off the coast of Rafah while the Israeli bombardment continued against the houses of the Palestinians in Jenin and the outskirts of Bethlehem, Hebron and Beit Jala.
The cities of Bethlehem, Ramullah, al-Beera, Gaza, Rafah, Khan Yunis witnessed strong confrontations in which the Palestinian Abdullah Amernah was killed in a bullet in Bethlehem. Saeed Abu halatah was also killed in Rafah and other 9 Palestinians were wounded in confrontations at Eirez barrier and others were hit near al-Fawar camp near Hebron.
News reports said that the Palestinian demonstrators attacked the Israeli sites and patrols scattered in various parts of the occupied lands with stones and explosives. They also attacked Beit Hdasa settlement and the confrontations extended to cover the settlements of Beit Sahai, Beit Elle and Aleita, Doutan military base and Sosya camp.
The Israeli forces admitted that several Israeli cars were damaged and one Israeli soldier was wounded.
The Israeli radio said that three young men from Husam village near Bethlehem were arrested under charges of throwing stones and two young men were arrested from Beisan.
A Palestinian shipping boat went off by a remote- sense device when it approached an Israeli " Dabbour" military boat off the coast of Rafah. The israeli radio admitted the incident but did not indicate the damages while the commander if the naval forces in Ashdout admitted the incident saying that " the booby trapped boat came from the Egyptian territorial waters."
Meantime, and in the course of its expansionist policy in building settlements in the occupied Arab lands, the Israeli government allotted a sum of US $ 300 million to build settlements in the West Bank and Gaza strip in its budget for the tax year 2001.
In a statement, the Israeli " Peace Now" movement said that this sum was allotted for the benefit of the Israeli settlers in 160 settlements built in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967.