The Israeli army continues its crackdown on the Palestinians

GAZA CITY, September 23 (IslamOnline & New Agencies) – Maintaining its policy of assassination, Israeli troops shot dead a member of the Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad around the border with the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, September 23, as Washington insisted the new Palestinian government be free from any influence by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

An Israeli military spokesman claimed that soldiers of the Israeli army had opened fire after they "spotted a suspicious shadow."

"It turned out to be an armed Palestinian who fired back," the spokesman added, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

While the Israelis claimed the man had managed to cross the security barrier between the Gaza Strip and Israel near the Israeli settlement of Dugit, Palestinian sources said he had been shot while still on the Gaza side of the border, reported AFP.

Islamic Jihad named the victim as Marwan Ahmed al-Najar, announcing his death by loudspeakers in the northern Gaza town of Jabiliya.

A statement later released by Islamic Jihad's armed wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, said that the teenager was killed during an exchange of fire as he "tried to enter a Zionist post".

A Palestinian security source confirmed that exchanges of fire had been heard near Dugit at dawn Tuesday.

In the West Bank, Israeli army detained six Palestinians overnight in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, according to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz.

A seventh was detained in Arabeh village, northeast of Jenin. The arrests followed a raid late Monday, in which a Border Police unit which operates undercover in Palestinian disguise arrested 12 men from Fatah in the Refadia neighborhood in Nablus.

The latest death brought to 3,485 the number of people killed in the three-year-old Palestinian uprising, according to an AFP toll, including 2,603 Palestinians and 819 Israelis, according to an AFP account.

Washington Presses Arafat

Washington still wants Arafat out of the picture

On the political Front, the United States said late Monday that any new Palestinian government must be independent from what it called "machinations" of Arafat if it wanted to move toward an independent Palestinian state.

The warning, delivered by Secretary of State Colin Powell, followed a massive outpouring of popular support for the embattled Palestinian leader prompted by Israeli threats earlier this month to either send him into exile or assassinate him.  

On Friday, the UN General Assembly voted 133-4 to urge Israel to refrain from any hostile action against Arafat.   

Despite these demonstrations of domestic and international backing, Powell demanded Arafat's virtual isolation within the Palestinian political system, saying he was "not a reliable partner for peace."

Middle East politics was thrown into turmoil early this month when Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas resigned in frustration with his inability to move the stalled regional peace process forward.   

Arafat replaced Abbas with Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qorei, who is currently holding political consultations, including with representatives of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, in hopes of quickly forming a new cabinet.

But Powell sounded skeptical about the process, saying "Mr. Arafat is playing in all of that" and the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush will have "to just wait and see" what Qorei is able to do.

In another development, Ha'aretz said Tuesday that the United States will wait until discussions in Israel on the separation fence are completed before deciding whether to deduct its costs from the loan guarantees.

This was the impression received by Israeli officials following meetings between a delegation headed by Dov Weisglass, head of the prime minister's bureau, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, according to the paper.

"The Israeli team, which also included the director-general of the Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron, and Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Danny Ayalon, presented its interlocutor with the proposed route of the fence, stressing that no decision had yet been reached with regard to the problematic area near Ariel."