The Israeli army entered on Wednesday PA-controlled areas in the Gaza Strip, injuring a Palestinian mother and her three-month-old infant with a barrage of shells.
Al Jazeera satellite channel reported that the Israeli forces went as deep as 200 meters into Rafah, where they launched an attack on a refugee camp, injuring Reem Ahmed and her mother. Both sustained shrapnel injuries to the head.
Meanwhile, three more Palestinians were injured during clashes with occupation troops near the Muntar crossing point (known to the Israeli as Karni), reported the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Earlier, Israeli troops destroyed a Palestinian security post in Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip.
The town has lately suffered frequent Israeli attacks, including an incursion criticized by the US, as well as other attacks involving the demolition of dozens of houses and security posts.
ISRAEL PLANS TO CLOSE ORIENT HOUSE
Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem has reported that Israeli Minister of Internal Security Uzi Landau plans to close down 11 Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, including the landmark Orient House.
The Orient House is considered the political center of the Palestinian Authority, whose role in the occupied holy city has always been subject to Israeli opposition.
The Palestinian senior official in charge of the Jerusalem File, Faisal Husseni, warned the Israelis against the move. In a statement to the station, Husseni said that “Jerusalem was the site of the first spark of the Intifada.”
He added that such closures would provoke a violent by the Palestinians, who would defend their national institutions.
US ‘OUTRAGED’ OVER SETTLERS KILLING
Earlier on Wednesday, two Jewish settlers were found dead in a cave in the West Bank.
US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said the US was outraged over the murder of the two 14-year-old settlers from the Tekoa settlement and condemned "in the strongest possible terms, the vicious murder of two youths, one of whom was Ya'akov Nathan Mandell, an American citizen," reported the Jerusalem Post newspaper
Indyk sent condolences to the families of the victims “on behalf of the government and people of the United States.”
"It is unacceptable that children have so often become the victims of this bloody conflict," Indyk said, adding, "It is time to put an end to this violence."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described the killings “reprehensible,” reported the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
An anonymous caller to Reuters claimed responsibility for the killings in the name of an Islamic militant group, saying they were to avenge the death of a four-month-old baby killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza on Monday, and the killing of an Islamic Jihad militant on Saturday.
However, the call could not be authenticated.
The two were identified by the Jerusalem Post as Yakov Natan Mandel and Yosef Ishran.
One of the bodies was first discovered shortly after 06:00 (Israel local time) at the entrance of the cave and the second further within, according to Israel Radio.
The two had gone on a day hike in the vicinity on Tuesday, said the report.
According to Army Radio, some 100 goats, part of a herd belonging to the community, were also stolen overnight.
Following the killings, Israeli forces entered a Palestinian Authority police station near the settlement and arrested 18 Palestinians suspected of involvement in the murder of the two settlers, said the paper.
Fifteen of the suspects are shepherds and farmers from the area.
Meanwhile, Israeli security forces arrested three Fateh activists near the West Bank city of Jenin, Army Radio reported, cited by the newspaper.
ISRAEL REJECTS US CONDEMNATION OF SETTLEMENT EXPANSION
Israel and the United States have squared off over Jewish settlements in a growing rift between the two allies on an issue at the heart of the Palestinian uprising.
In another rebuke of Israeli moves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the US State Department sharply criticized Tuesday plans by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government to allocate some $350 million to existing settlements.
"We question why Israel would be allocating more money for settlements at this time," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said, according to Reuters.
"This activity risks further inflaming the already volatile situation in the region and is provocative."
Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler and at least 19 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire on Tuesday.
A 17-year-old Palestinian died of wounds sustained on Friday, when Israeli soldiers fired at rock-throwers in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials said.
A spokesman for Sharon called the US statement unfair and said Israel was not building new settlements, but simply improving the infrastructure for those already on the ground and accommodating "natural growth" of their populations, said Reuters.
Some 200,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, home to three million Palestinians.
"This money is in no way provocative. What's provocative about building a nursery because more babies are being born?" asked the spokesman, Raanan Gissin.
Settlements on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war are illegal under international law.
Under interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals, the future of settlements is to be determined in a final agreement.
US STEPS UP CRITICISM
Washington has been increasingly vocal in its criticism of Israeli policy, as violence with the Palestinians continues to rage with no end in sight.
An Israeli strike last month into part of Gaza after a Palestinian mortar bomb attack on a town in southern Israel ended abruptly when US Secretary of State Colin Powell termed the incursion excessive.
Israeli commentators said Powell's statement marked a turning point in what had been a honeymoon relationship between the administration of US President George W. Bush and the united government headed by right-winger Sharon.
In Gaza on Tuesday, thousands of mourners attended the funeral of four-month-old Iman Hejjo, a Palestinian girl killed a day earlier by an Israeli tank shell at a refugee camp, which the Israeli army said was a "response" to a mortar bomb attack on a Jewish settlement.
Hejjo was the youngest victim of the conflict to date.
In the Moroccan capital, Rabat, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said on Tuesday that Israel was provoking the continuation of the uprising.
Moussa told Reuters on the sidelines of an Arab trade meeting that Israel was "totally paralyzing the peace process, leading to the return of the Arab-Israeli conflict."
MORTAR SHELLS FIRED AT JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN GAZA, NO INJURIES REPORTED
Palestinian fighters fired mortar shells early Wednesday at the Jewish settlement of Nisanit in the Gaza Strip, said Haaretz.
There were no casualties or damage in the attack, it added.
The shelling came as Israeli officials said there was a high probability that Palestinians had mortars in the West Bank as well, and could use them in a future escalation, according to the paper.
DEFIANT SHARON VISITS MAALE ADUMIM
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon followed up his rejection of the US-led Mitchell Committee's call for a freeze in Jewish settlement construction by visiting the largest one on Tuesday, said Reuters.
"You not only live in the prettiest place, you live in a place of the highest importance to the security and the future of the state of Israel," the right-wing leader told flag-waving children in the Maale Adumim settlement near Jerusalem.
"I had the honor...of initiating the building of this city," Sharon said of Maale Adumim, home to 25,000 Israelis and the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"(It is) located in one of the most important places in the State of Israel as a bridge between the capital of Israel, Jerusalem...and our eastern security zone, the Jordan Valley," said Sharon, a long-time champion of settlement-building.
Later, outside Sharon's Jerusalem residence, hundreds of West Bank settlers held a demonstration to demand he make good on a campaign promise to restore security to Israelis in the face of a Palestinian uprising that began in September, added the agency.
It was the largest protest against Sharon by fellow right-wingers since his election in February.
"You didn't keep your promise," read one banner.
Prior to his visit to Maale Adumim, Sharon reaffirmed his objection to a settlement freeze in remarks to the Foreign Press Association.
"We don't have to pay in order not to be killed. We will not pay protection money," Sharon said in his remarks to the foreign correspondents.
He said Israel had no intention of building new settlements, but would allow existing ones to expand in accordance with the "natural" growth of their population -- a distinction Palestinians reject.
Some 200,000 Jews live in 145 settlements scattered among three million Palestinians on lands occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. The settlements are illegal under international law, but settlers say they have a divine right to live anywhere in the biblical Land of Israel, according to the agency.
"(We) are crossing our fingers for you in your difficult mission assigned to you...We trust you," a small girl told Sharon in Maale Adumim.
SHARON PREPARES PLAN TO ALLOW ISRAELIS INTO AL AQSA MOSQUE
Al Jazeera reported that Sharon has given the green light for Israelis to enter Al Aqsa Mosque, the site for the first scene of the Intifada, when Sharon's visit to the holy site provoked the mass uprising last September.
The station quoted Israeli sources as saying the hawkish leader was responding to pressures from Orthodox Jews who were urging him to declare a state of war against the Palestinians.
Islamic awqaf (religious endowment) officials warned that such a decision would mean more unrest.
"It is not a simple issue," director of Jerusalem awqaf official Adnan Husseini told the station, warning that the Palestinians would not stand helpless while their third holiest shrine was being defiled.
AHMAD JEBRIL SAYS WEAPONS SHIPMENT WAS HIS GROUP'S BUSINESS
After Israel announced the seizure of a weapons-laden boat heading to Gaza, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), Ahamd Jebril, said in a statement to Al Jazeera that the shipment was part of his Damascus-based group's operations "to support Palestinians with all the weapons they need in their struggle against Israel."
The Israeli navy had said the dissident pro-Syrian Palestinian group had intended to step up attacks on Israel by smuggling Katyusha rockets, rocket-propelled grenades, mines and anti-aircraft missiles by ship into Gaza.
Explosive materials, mortars and Kalashnikov assault rifles were also found on the ship when it was seized off northern Israel's Mediterranean coast, it said.
"The sender, as far as we can tell... is the Jebril organization," Navy Commander Major General Yadidiah Ya'ari said.
But Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo denied the Palestinian Authority or the Palestine Liberation Organization were involved in the arms shipment, according to Haaretz.
"We are not responsible for his actions and anyway, (Ahmed) Jebril is hostile and a rival to the Palestinian Authority and the PLO," Abed Rabbo said
Sharon had told reporters the same day that the ship, the Santorini, had succeeded three times in bringing arms shipments to the Gaza Strip.
According to Sharon, there are already Katyushas in Gaza.
The Israeli media quoted defense sources as confirming that there were already Katyushas in the West Bank.
Sharon added that this was a dangerous development and severe violation to the accords on the part of the PNA.
Sharon announced that information on the fourth trip of the Santorini was based on interrogation of one of its arrested crew members.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer pointed an accusing finger at what he called Palestinian preparations for war, said the Israeli paper.
"This matter makes a laughing stock of all the agreements and all the promises and everything (the Palestinians) have committed to. As we say every day, 'Come back to the negotiating table', they are organizing for war.
"That is escalation... (It) doesn't leave room for doubt where they are heading," he told the paper.
Al Jazeera, meanwhile, cited Lebanese officials as denying the shipment was launched from their territories.
PERES: MITCHELL'S REPORT CAN BE BASIS FOR PEACE TALKS
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday that a four-step plan for resuming peace talks in the Middle East proposed by former US senator George Mitchell could be a basis for ending 'violence' in the region, reported Reuters.
Sounding more positive on the report by Mitchell's committee than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Peres told a news conference in Berlin that Israel would try to implement its findings.
"There is the Mitchell report, which suggests a sequence, how to do it in four steps," Peres said, describing these as ending the violence, taking confidence-building measures, allowing a cooling-off period, and returning to negotiations.
"We accept it. We are trying to realize it," Peres said.
"We are trying to bring an end to the shooting because under fire it is difficult to conduct negotiations.
"Maybe we can really reach an understanding based on the Mitchell report, on most of its consequences, and even many of the items in the Jordanian-Egyptian proposal," he added, referring to recommendations made by the two Arab nations.
"It's very complicated," Peres said, speaking in English.
"The psychological mistrust is deep and growing, but in spite of it, we did not lose hope and we shall continue to work for peace."
Peres, who was attending a conference of European Socialist Democrats in Berlin, said the government was seeking a solution to the problem of the growth of existing settlements after its decision to stop the building of new settlements, said Reuters - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
