Palestinian leaders are planning a general strike and demonstrations on Monday to appeal to the Arab World to help recover the recently seized Orient House, the PLO’s unofficial headquarters in occupied east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians hope Arab countries will respond favorably to the appeal and join the strike initiated by the Fateh movement, a day after Israeli troops seized the building and shelled several PA bases in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israeli authorities said the building was seized in retaliation for Thursday’s suicide bombing in west Jerusalem, which killed 13 Israelis, two foreign tourists and the Palestinian suicide bomber, a member of the Hamas resistance movement.
"We call on the Palestinians and the Arab people to demonstrate their solidarity by joining in the general strike planned for tomorrow [Monday], a day of action for the protection of our city and its holy places," according to a statement by 30 Muslim and Christian religious leaders and Palestinian politicians who held a press conference in the occupied east Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis, where the Israeli troops closed a Palestinian telecom center on Sunday.
The statement also called on "the United Nations, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and all the countries of the world who love peace to take on their responsibilities to put an end to this savage aggression" against the Palestinian people.
Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmad Qorei, who was among the participants, said that the Palestinians would resist "by all means" Israel's seizure of their institutions in occupied east Jerusalem.
In another development, Haaretz newspaper reported that Israel had decided “not to retaliate" for a suicide bombing in the northern Israeli town of Haifa, which killed the Palestinian suicide bomber and injured 16 Israelis.
The decision not to respond was apparently based on several reasons, according to the paper.
“The low number of injuries incurred in the attack did not obligate a response,” said the paper, adding that “it is possible that the lack of an immediate response stems from the renewed attempts to reach a ceasefire with the Palestinian Authority.”
Preparations were made Sunday night in Gaza for an Israeli attack. Police stations and buildings used by Palestinian security services were emptied of people for fear of an Israeli response to the bombing.
Six of the Israeli wounded are still hospitalized in Haifa, said the paper.
Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the attack, in a statement cited by Al Jazeera satellite channel.
The statement identified the suicide bomber as Mohammed Mahmoud Bacher Nasser, 28, from the Qabatiya refugee camp, west of the West Bank town of Jenin.
"We in Islamic Jihad are responding with this heroic operation to the crimes of the Zionist entity and the massacres it commits against the Palestinian people," the statement said.
However, there were also signs that Israeli leaders were prepared to retread the diplomacy path, with political sources announcing that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had approved meetings between his dovish foreign Minister Peres and Palestinian leaders other than Arafat, on the revival of the US-sponsored ceasefire agreement, AFP said.
Earlier, Peres told fellow Labor Party members that there was "no chance" of reviving the shattered ceasefire declared in June unless the government started talking to the Palestinian leadership.
Since the June truce was agreed, the fighting on the ground has continued and even accelerated. A total of 102 people have died, 65 Palestinians, 35 Israelis and two foreigners, in the intervening period, according to AFP estimates.
"Some people say that there should be no negotiations under fire and I accept that... but there must be negotiations to apply the ceasefire," Peres told the radio.
Meanwhile, an eight-year-old Palestinian girl was killed overnight in Hebron during an exchange of fire between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli troops, said the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
It added that seven other Palestinians were injured.
AFP's latest death tally for the Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation comes out to 13 Arab Israelis, 548 Palestinians, and 146 Israelis, putting the ratio of casualties at around four Palestinians killed for every Israeli loss. Israeli wounded number in the high hundreds, while the Palestine Red Crescent Society puts the number of Palestinians injured at over 14,000.
Amnesty International reported early this year that almost 100 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli soldiers, nearly all in situations where the occupation troops were under no immediate threat - Albawaba.com
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