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Palestinian man retrieves an undamaged air conditioner from
Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli
occupation army has abducted 25 Palestinians overnight in different
parts of the West Bank, a military spokesman said Tuesday, October 1.
Sixteen
of them were “wanted” by the Israeli authorities and were abducted
in villages in the northern West Bank, the spokesman said in a
statement, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Six
others were abducted in Alabed, a village east of Tulkarem, two in
Bido, south of Ramallah, and one in Al-Khalil (Hebron), in the
southern West Bank.
Meanwhile,
a Palestinian man working as a security guard was shot dead by Israeli
troops early Tuesday as the army staged an incursion into the eastern
part of Gaza City, Palestinian hospital sources said.
Abu
Jibril Bihar, 50, who was working as a watchman on a farm, was hit by
Israeli bullets as two tanks and a bulldozer rolled into the
Al-Shujayiah district on the eastern edge of Gaza City, they said.
The
tanks opened heavy machine-gun fire as an Apache helicopter over flew
and fired at least two missiles on an unidentified target, security
sources said.
The
army said it was not aware of any Palestinian killed in the eastern
district of Gaza City, and said the only ongoing activity was the
search for a Palestinian gunman who was seen trying to cross the
northern border into Israel.
After
an exchange of fire with Israeli forces, during which time the gunman
threw several hand grenades at the troops, he fled and searches were
underway to locate him, a spokesman said.
In
Ramallah, Israeli guns were once again trained on the West Bank
headquarters of Yasser Arafat as troops took over two houses facing
the Palestinian President’s battered compound, senior Arafat aide
Nabil Abu Rudeina said Tuesday.
Speaking
from inside Arafat’s offices, Abu Rudeina said Israeli troops
occupied two Palestinian houses in front of the Muqataa compound and
pointed their guns out of the windows towards Arafat's offices.
“Now
the Muqataa is under guns again. This goes against the implementation
of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1435,” he told AFP
by phone.
“We
ask the United States and all the international community to move
immediately to stop this Israeli aggression and to push Israel to
withdraw completely according to the U.N. security council
resolution,” he said.
“Israel
has withdrawn from the door - now it must also withdraw from the
window.”
An
Israeli army spokesman declined to comment on the incident, saying he
“could not specify the IDF’s operational deployment, nor say
whether there were troops in the area.”
Israel
on Sunday withdrew its forces from Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters
after a 10-day siege, following heavy pressure from the international
community, notably from its closest ally the United States.
Last
Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1435, in which
it demanded Israel “immediately cease measures in and around
Ramallah, including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and
security infrastructure.” The resolution was adopted by 14-0 votes,
with the United States abstaining.
But
despite the apparent pullback of all troops from most of Ramallah, Abu
Rudeina on Sunday slammed the move as “a farce and a fraud, by which
Israel hopes to get round the application of Security Council
Resolution 1435”.
On
Monday, the European Union also denounced Israeli restrictions on
Palestinian leaders.
“Restricting
freedom of movement of the Palestinians and their leadership and
destroying their infrastructure doesn’t contribute to fighting
terror or to solve Israel’s legitimate security concerns,” EU
foreign ministers said at a meeting in Brussels.
“More
than ever, Israelis and Palestinians must return to the negotiating
table,” they said in a statement.
Earlier,
E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana welcomed the end of the siege
of Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah but
insisted on total Israeli withdrawal from the area.
“What
happened yesterday is positive,” Solana told reporters in Brussels
after Israel did a U-turn on Sunday and pulled its tanks and troops
back from the Muqataa, Arafat’s battle-scarred Ramallah base.
But
Solana said: “It has to continue until the withdrawal is total,”
adding that E.U. envoy to the region Miguel Angel Moratinos had spoken
to Arafat overnight.
