Israeli bulldozers demolish 5 Palestinian homes; officials do not trust Sharon on achieving peace

"Israeli bulldozers demolished Monday five Palestinian houses in the Israeli area of Naqab. 250 Israeli soldiers, backed with military vehicles and bulldozers, broke into the Abu Al Nadi and Abu Sbait neighborhoods in the Israeli city of Naqab and started demolishing houses owned by the Al-Atrash family," the Palestinian IPC news agency reported yesterday.

Palestinian Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Hisham Abdel Raziq, said yesterday that he "doesn’t trust the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in light of latest developed issues with the Israeli side," the IPC had reported earlier this week.

“I don’t believe that Sharon really wants to achieve peace with the Palestinian people. When he says he wants to enhance Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen's status, he actually works on weakening him through actions. When he says he considers Abu Mazen as a peace man, and considers President Arafat in the same time as a terror supporter, he actually undermines Abu Mazen,” the Minister said in an interview with the Yediot Ahronot Israeli daily newspaper, the report said.

“It is impossible to build trust measures between the two sides as long as President Arafat is under siege in Ramallah City,” the Minister added, IPC reported.

The IPC also said "President Yasser Arafat, accused Saturday the Israeli Government of working on thwarting the peace process.

What happened in Nablus, and other places in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not just a violation of the Palestinian 'Hudna' (truce), yet it is a destruction of the peace process as a whole, president Arafat told reporters after his meeting with a German delegation in his headquarter in Ramallah City."