|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Contributions by Sakher Abu el Oun of AFP NICOSIA AND GAZA CITY (IslamOnline & AFP) - The Palestinian territories were drenched in blood Saturday, as the Israeli army shot and killed 15 Palestinians and injured more than 500 in clashes before declaring a ceasefire with the Palestinian Authority. Among the dead killed by Israeli troops were 14-year-old Nizar Ede of Ramallah and 12-year-old Rami al-Durra of Gaza. Seven Palestinians were killed the day before. Groups around the Middle East voiced outrage Saturday at the Israeli army's killing of Palestinian demonstrators and called for retribution against Israel. The head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad said it would be "pointless to look for a peaceful solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in light of the violence. The clashes were provoked by a controversial visit to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound - the third holiest site in Islam - by Israel's right wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon Thursday, and escalated over the past three days. "The Zionist regime's crimes yesterday and today in all of occupied Palestine prove once more that peaceful steps bear no fruit," Ramadan Abdullah Shallah said Saturday on Radio Tehran, speaking from an unnamed location. "We are calling for the pursuit of jihad [holy war] and the intifada in Palestine," he said, in reference to the Palestinian uprising of the 1980s. "It is impossible to win back our rights in any other way," Shallah added.
"It means all the children of Islam must unite to save Al-Quds [the Arabic name for Jerusalem] and Al-Aqsa [the Jerusalem mosque which is Islam's third holiest site]," he told journalists upon arriving in Tehran. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim group that spearheaded a war against Israel's 22-year occupation, called for "an open war" against Israel. "We are calling on our kin in Palestine to enter open war with Israel by setting off bombs, launching ambushes, firing bullets, throwing grenades and organizing suicide attacks," said Sheikh Nabil Qauq, the Hezbollah leader in south Lebanon. He said the current "intifada" in Jerusalem heralded "the step-by-step defeat of Israel." At the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near the Lebanese port of Sidon, 3,000 Islamists ended prayers with a call to action. An official with one of the groups, Jamaa Islamiya, Sheikh Jamal Khattab issued a call "to take up arms to liberate Jerusalem" and called on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority "to stop negotiating with the Jewish people, who do not want peace." In Egypt, the banned Muslim Brotherhood denounced the "odious massacre" of Palestinians at the Jerusalem mosque compound Friday and called on Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to let its people "exercise their true choice, which is holy war." The Brotherhood called on the Arab world to act "to protect Islam's third holiest site" and said an Arab summit was urgently needed "to counter Zionist plans seeking to get their hands on Palestine, Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque." Israelis and Palestinians declare ceasefire after 15 dead in day After Israelis and Palestinians traded accusations over who was responsible for the bloodshed, both agreed on a ceasefire Saturday. Israel's acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami said the Palestinian Authority orchestrated the clashes. Ben Ami said Israel had asked world leaders to tell But Arafat reportedly accused the Israelis of having orders "to aim for the head of Palestinian citizens and worshippers." Arab League Secretary General Esmat Abdel Meguid, who met Arafat in Cairo, said the Palestinian leader showed him and European Union envoy Miguel Moratinos "photographs of Israeli soldiers in the process of aiming their guns equipped with scopes so that the wounds of Palestinians would be direct and fatal." Palestinian health minister Riad Zaanun, who announced the toll of Palestinian deaths and injuries, accused the Israeli army of "using live ammunition and dumdum bullets, which are banned internationally," and of aiming at the upper part of the body. However, the army told Israeli public radio that it does not possess any dumdum bullets. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in a telephone call to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said the army was exercising "maximum restraint," while being "determined to preserve public order and protect its citizens." Barak told Mubarak that the Palestinian Authority also needed to show restraint and control the disturbances, his spokesman David Baker said. Abdel Meguid quoted Arafat as saying Sharon's controversial visit to the mosque compound was responsible for the violence, and laid part of the blame on the Israeli government. Sharon was "protected by 3,000 Israeli soldiers, which means the Israeli government accepts such practices," he said. On the Israeli side, officials said 16 policemen and one soldier were injured Saturday. A police spokesman added that 30 Palestinians were arrested. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Also in Iran, Khaled Meshaal, head of the political bureau of the Palestinian movement Hamas, called the situation "very grave."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "that the attempt to make political gains from violence in the short run is a very dangerous matter to the peace process."
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
