Arafat Opens Dialogue with Washington as Violence Flares in the Territories

13/07/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: In a Long Letter to Powell Arafat Lists Reforms He Intends to Undertake & Seeks Washington's Help to Implement Them||Hamas Defies Israel in Gaza||Six Palestinians Seriously Wounded in Gaza as Israel Rounds up Scores of Palestinians Across the West Bank|| STORY: Three weeks after President Bush demanded the ouster of Gasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader has opened a dialogue with the Bush administration with a long letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell on U.S. demands for democratic change.(Read photo caption)

In the letter, Arafat listed reforms he has undertaken but told Powell Israel's military thrust onto the West Bank has limited what he could do, said a U.S. official familiar with the letter.

Arafat said a 100-day reform program already was in place and requested U.S. help to implement further reforms, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Powell, in a brief interview with al-Jazzier, a satellite television station based in Qatar in the Arabian Gulf, said he read the letter and found it interesting.

Powell reiterated he would not deal with Arafat, however, but said he would consider the letter further and have his staff look into it, the television station reported.

At the State Department, Powell's spokesman, Richard Boucher, said Friday, "He did read the letter, yes."

And while Powell intends to avoid personal contact with Arafat, whom the Bush administration has accused of being involved in corruption and terror, Powell said the State Department intends to respond in some way.

In an Associated Press interview Friday at his headquarters in Ramallah, Arafat sidestepped Bush's demand for his removal.
Without saying whether he would seek re-election in January, the 73-year-old Palestinian leader said: "I have been elected by the people. I am not a coward. I am not ready to betray the people who elected me."

VIOLENCE FLARES IN THE TERRITORIES

Four Palestinians died Friday as Israeli occupation forces combed the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a hunt for armed Resistance men, in a bid to crush the 21-month-old intifada and head off further Resistance bomb attacks in Israel.

But in bold defiance of Israel, Palestinian Resistance movement Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for waves of Resistance bombings, rallied 5,000 supporters in the Gaza Strip's Nuseirat refugee camp in remembrance of six members who were killed in an Israeli helicopter strike last month.

A Hamas leader later told AFP by telephone the rally was a message to Israel that "we will continue the resistance and jihad (holy war) and take revenge for the six."

During a pre-dawn raid on a police station in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces shot dead a 25-year-old policeman and a 13-year-old boy, who was inside a nearby home, Palestinian security and hospital officials said.

Wounded in the attack at the station near Deir el-Balah, south of Gaza City, were four civilians and two security men, who were listed in serious condition and transported to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the officials said.

The dead policeman, Khaled al-Khatib, was hit in the chest and head, while the boy, Muween al-Udani, died after a bullet struck him in the head, the hospital officials said.

Israeli occupation forces delayed an ambulance from reaching the boy for two hours, said Doctor Ahmed Rabah, director of Deir el-Balah hospital, adding that Udani had died by the time it finally arrived.

Israeli troops, some in armoured vehicles, had charged into the Palestinian self-rule area at 1:30 am (2203 GMT Thursday), opening fire with heavy machine guns on the police post, security sources said.

The violence comes as Israel continued a three-week reoccupation of the West Bank, arresting hundreds of suspected Palestinian militants and killing others.

A Palestinian journalist died Friday of his wounds after he was shot during an Israeli incursion on Thursday in the center of the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Jenin hospital officials said.

Imad Abu Zahra, 35, who worked both as a freelance writer and photographer for a Palestinian publication, bled to death after a bullet severed an artery, according to hospital officials.

Colleagues said he was wearing a jacket with the word "Press" stamped on it in English.

A photographer wounded in the same incident, Said Dahla, was listed in fair condition, hospital officials said.

Colleagues said he was also wearing a jacket marked "Press".

Palestinian security sources said the shooting broke out after the army announced that a curfew had been lifted, but an Israeli military spokesman denied that this was the case.

Jenin, considered a hotbed of armed Palestinian Resistance, was the first of seven West Bank cities seized by Israel in their latest campaign, codenamed "Operation Determined Path."

A Palestinian teacher, Jamal Arrar, 37, died Friday in an Israeli hospital after Israeli troops shot him as he returned from the West Bank town of Qalqilya to his neighboring village, Palestinian security sources said.

Palestinian security sources gave no other details on the circumstances in which he was fatally wounded or on why he was moved to an Israeli hospital.

In Jenin's old city, the occupation army ordered Friday all males, aged between 13 and 50, inside a school for questioning, security sources said.

Explosions and gunfire could be heard.

Several dozen men were transferred to a nearby army base for detention, they added.

Elsewhere, the occupation army enforced a curfew in the Al-Fara refugee camp near Nablus, rounding up the camp's men in a school courtyard.

The army also invaded the village of Siris near Jenin, where Palestinian youth hurled stones in reprisal.

Back in the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation soldiers opened fire Friday in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, hitting Saddiqa el-Ghula, 39, in her chest with a bullet. Officials at Rafah hospital said she was in "very critical condition."

Witnesses said the area had been quiet before the occupation troops opened fire.

PHOTO CAPTION

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat speaks with reporters at his Ramallah headquarters Friday, July 12, 2002. Arafat said that he would not step down unless he was voted out in January elections and that he had not decided yet whether he would be a candidate. (AP Photo/John Moore)