Israeli troops seriously wounded Monday afternoon a 12-year-old girl in Nablus. Marwa Kayed was hit by bullets in the head and chest when Israeli troops opened fire on stone-throwing demonstrators not far from her home, Palestinian security officials said.
The protest followed an army operation to raze a nearby piece of land, the officials said.
Earlier, Palestinian sources reported that the Israeli army demolished two houses Monday morning in the town of Yata, near the West Bank city of Hebron.
It was reported that the houses belonged to the families of activists who carried out attacks inside Israel.
Also on Monday, Muhamed Ahmed Amin Jerar, 42, one of the commanders of the Islamic Jihad military wing in Jenin, was arrested by the Israeli security forces in the village of Kod, west of Jenin. Muhamed Jerar, an explosives expert, was arrested while planning to carry out a suicide bombing attack in Israel within the coming days, the Israeli army said in a statement.
Jerar was engaged in teaching and training Islamic Jihad operatives in the manufacture and use of explosive
materials and devices for use by activist in the Jenin area, the statement added.
Yehiyeh
Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Yehiyeh called on Monday for Palestinians to end all violence against Israelis and switch to civil resistance in their nearly two-year-old uprising for statehood.
"All forms of Palestinian violence have to stop," Yehiyeh told Reuters in an interview. "All resistance acts that are characterized by violence, such as using arms or even stones...are harmful. I call for civil resistance within the framework of the political struggle," he said.
Yehiyeh repeated a call he first made last week, that Palestinian suicide attacks must end, which he told Reuters harms the Palestinian cause.
He acknowledged in the interview that the Palestinian Authority was having "great difficulty in regaining full control" of security in Palestinian areas.
"Let's admit...we have lost a lot," Yehiyeh said of the suicide attacks. "I am not saying this side is to blame, or that. I'm saying there is occupation and dealing with occupation in this manner has harmed us. Therefore we have to find other ways to deal with it."
"The Palestinian leadership condemns every suicide attack. Shall we stop at condemnation? Is condemnation our only job? I say the whole concept has to change."
Yehiyeh said a plan he formulated with Israel's Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer last month under which Israeli forces left the West Bank city of Bethlehem and turned security control over to Palestinian police was a first step in changing a mindset of violence.
"The mentality will change by returning first to normalcy and doing that would be first to end occupation," he said.
Next, "every (Palestinian) has to help us to make the rule of law prevail in our areas, from the areas that the Israeli troops leave," he said. "If the situation remains as it is, we will never be able to set up our state."
Arafat
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters on Sunday there is an Israeli conspiracy to undermine and end the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Arafat did not elaborate on the issue and specify who is behind the Israeli conspiracy. However, he said the Israeli forces are committing massacres against Palestinian civilians under the instructions of high-level leaders in the Israeli government and the Israeli army.
He added those leaders and officers attempt to end and destroy the peace process between the two sides.
Asked to comment on the killings of four Palestinians on early Sunday near Hebron, Arafat commented it is not only one massacre, there are a series of massacres committed upon orders from those leaders.
He aired that he had addressed letters to the international community, to inform them that there is a conspiracy against the peace process. "This conspiracy aims at hitting the peace of the braves I have reached with my late Israeli partner Yitzhak Rabin, who was killed by Israeli extremist," said Arafat.
Commenting on Israel's decision to let him leave the Palestinian territories but never let him back, Arafat said "he (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) knows better than anybody else that I can come back and no one can prevent me from returning home."
Israeli "probe"
Following a spate of recent incidents in which Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli fire, Israel's Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer instructed the Army Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon on Sunday night to launch an inquiry - to be headed by an officer ranked at least general - to examine the events.
Ben-Eliezer said he wanted the findings presented to him by the end of this week, with "operative recommendations to prevent the recurrence of such unfortunate accidents in the future."
According to army radio, military officials voiced their "discontent" after Ben Eliezer's office announced the creation of the commission, arguing that its recommendations could restrict the army's operations on the ground.
The radio said some officers warned that any changes in the shooting and arrests procedures could "hamper their mission of preventing terrorist attacks."
Public radio explained the probe came against the backdrop of an acute crisis between the defence ministry and the army, the former accusing the latter of not providing the details on the circumstances of civilians deaths soon enough to protect Israel's image abroad.
Out of the 49 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in August, 30 were civilians, according to Palestinian medical and human rights organisations quoted Monday by the Haaretz daily.
PLC
On his part, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the cabinet Sunday that he would not permit the Palestinian Legislative Council to meet next week, because Arafat would use the meeting to "put on a show."
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Ben-Eliezer said the meeting should be permitted, with Ben-Eliezer noting that Arafat's standing in the PA has been weakened substantially. A final decision is expected later this week.
It has not yet been decided whether to allow PLC members to leave Gaza to attend the meeting in Ramallah. Palestinians say the meeting is necessary to start the process of preparing for PA elections in January 2003. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
