1 Country remains in defiance of the UN resolutions-

Israel to pursue Arafat siege despite UN resolution

AFP [ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2002 01:10:10 PM ]

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army will maintain its siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah despite a UN resolution demanding its "immediate" halt, a senior Israeli official said.


"The United Nations can do what it wants, but Israel will continue the operation until its aims are achieved," the official said on condition of anonymity.


"Either Arafat leaves his headquarters or the terrorists holed up there hand themselves over," the official said.


Following a first Israeli-Palestinian meeting on Monday that was aimed at ending the siege Israel imposed on Thursday in retaliation for two suicide bombings, Arafat rejected Israel's demand for the names of all the people holed up with him in his battered headquarters.


With the United States abstaining, the UN Security Council voted 14-0 on Tuesday morning for a resolution demanding that Israel lift its siege of Arafat's battered headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.


The Israeli official added that the US abstention was expected, as Washington needed to obtain the largest support possible to deal with Iraq.


The deputy US ambassador to the United Nations, James Cunningham, said he had abstained because the resolution failed also to explicitly condemn Palestinian suicide bombings.


The council said it was "gravely concerned at the reoccupation of the headquarters of the President of the Palestinian Authority in the City of Ramallah" and demanded "its immediate end".


Security Council resolution 1435 also demanded "the complete cessation of all acts of violence, including all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction."


It singled out for condemnation the "terrorist" bombings in a Palestinian school in Hebron on September 17, 2002, blamed on Jewish settlers, and in Israel on September 18 and 19, 2002, when suicide bombers from radical Islamist groups killed seven people as well as themselves.


It also demanded "the withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces from Palestinian cities towards the return to the positions held prior to September 2000" — the start of the intifada, the uprising against Israeli occupation.


The Palestinian leadership welcomed the UN resolution, but said this time the Security Council must push Israel to implement the decision, a top Arafat aide said.