Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines, Links & a Photo, Sep 22, 2003 ~

Head of Palestinian UN delegation fails to get US visa on time
"The host country's authorities have failed to issue a visa on time for the head of the observer delegation of Palestine to the 58th session of the General Assembly, Farouk Kaddoumi," the mission said in a statement.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1515&ncid=1515&e=4&u=/afp/20030922/wl_mideast_afp/un_us_palestinians_030922210251


Holes in the Road Map
This occupation has not changed in nature since 1967. Long before the Palestinian suicide bombs, Israel terrorised the occupied territories: demolishing houses, starving communities with closures, expelling people and harassing them daily on roadblocks. The road map does not offer any significant change in this respect, nor did the Oslo accord before it.
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_Articles/2003/articles-080.html


Israeli Troops Exchange Fire in Hebron
HEBRON, West Bank - Israeli troops backed by tanks surrounded a house in Hebron early Monday, exchanging fire with at least one gunman inside and then demolishing the building, Palestinian witnesses and military officials said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=10&u=/ap/20030922/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_hebron


IOF Demolishes a House in Jerusalem, Seizes Lands in Tulkarem
Israeli occupying bulldozers demolished morning today a house in East Jerusalem, as means of clearing a path for constructing a colonial road. Eyewitnesses said that several Israeli bulldozers demolished the house of Rashid Za'atra, home to 12 individuals...
http://www.ipc-ps.info/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2003/2003-09/093.html


Qureia Calls for a United Palestinian Front
In an interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, Qureia expressed satisfaction over the progress made in cease-fire talks with various Palestinian factions, adding that Hamas and Islamic Jihad both showed a high level of commitment to national unity.
http://www.imemc.org/headlines/september2003/Week%204/092203/qurei.htm


Arafat Says He Wants Total Truce; Israel Rejects
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) declared a commitment to reaching a total cease-fire with Israel in a letter given to envoys of the peacemaking "Quartet," Palestinian officials said Monday. But the letter cited conditions, including an international observer force to help enforce U.S.-led peace moves, that Israel has already rejected.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=14&u=/nm/20030922/ts_nm/mideast_dc_45


Belgium awaits rulings on lawsuits against US, Israeli leaders
Faced with the diplomatic pressure the Belgian government agreed to scrap the 10-year-old law and in August parliament approved a new, watered-down version of it, which can only be applied where either the victim or perpetrator is a Belgian national or resident. But a number of cases are still pending and must be resolved.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1515&ncid=1515&e=10&u=/afp/20030922/wl_mideast_afp/belgium_us_israel_law_030922140106


Israel recruits Russian sharpshooters
Israel's army has begun using Russian immigrant soldiers, veterans of fighting in Chechnya, as snipers to guard Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, Israeli security sources say. The volunteers included veterans of the Russian army's fight against rebels in the Chechen region.
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/WireFeed/WireFeed&c=WireFeed&cid=1063869103372&p=1014232938216


Occupation forces arrest Palestinian girl on charges of attempted stabbing
Occupied Jerusalem - Zionist occupation forces have arrested a 17 years old Palestinian girl on charges of planning to stab a Zionist soldier in occupied eastern Jerusalem.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/publish/article_2561.shtml


Security source: Israel may free Barghouti in hostage swap
Meanwhile, a Palestinian source closely associated with the German mediator brokering the deal told The Associated Press on Monday that Israel has agreed in principle to release about 400 Arab prisoners, including at least 200 Palestinians. Barghouti, the most senior Palestinian held by Israel, tops the list of those Hezbollah seeks to free...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/342944.html


State appeals decision allowing PM's son to keep documents
The state prosecutor's office on Monday submitted a request to the Supreme Court to allow it to appeal a decision by the Tel Aviv District Court, which ruled that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's son Gilad does not have to hand over documents to police that are related to the Cyril Kern loan affair.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/342964.html


Hamas says shocked by Lebanese probe for assets
"We in the Hamas movement were surprised by this news. We did not expect such a request to be issued from anyone in Lebanon, which resists (Israel) and in whose strategic and national choices in support of the Palestinian uprising and resistance we trust," Hamdan said in a statement.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/342995.html


Israelis lobby Bush on security fence
The compromise has enraged supporters of the fence in Israel, but Sharon hopes it will avoid a head-on collision with the Bush administration. The spat with Washington is the latest chapter in the tortured history of the project, which was first proposed by dovish Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the 2001 election campaign.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/22/MN24064.DTL


IOF Detains US Cardinal For Three Hours on Roadblock
A delegation of several prominent Christian men of cloth, including Cardinal Bernard Law, former leader of the Archdiocese of Boston accompanied by 20 Christian figures in the United States, and escorted by Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch Of Jerusalem and Manuel Musallam...
http://www.ipc-ps.info/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2003/2003-09/094.html


700 Indian Jews settle near Al-Khalil
New Delhi - A group of 700 Indian Jews of both sexes has recently settled in a Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Al-Khalil, according to Indian press reports yesterday.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/publish/article_2562.shtml


Occupation forces sweep into the Jenin refugee camp
Jenin - Zionist occupation forces backed by two Apache helicopters and scores of armored vehicles last night swept into the Jenin refugee camp in north of the West Bank, Palestinian sources reported.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/publish/article_2552.shtml


Trial of PFLP deputy secretary general adjourned
Ramallah - The Zionist military court in Ofer prison today adjourned the trial of Abdul Rahim Mallouh, the deputy secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, till next November.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/am/publish/article_2558.shtml


Remote Weaponry to be Deployed at Separation Wall
According to various publications, Israeli security forces revealed that the separation wall as currently under construction would include remote control machine guns, which would automatically fire at Palestinian infiltrators who approach the wall.
http://www.imemc.org/headlines/september2003/Week%204/092203/remote-weapnry.htm


Analyst: Middle East Military Gap Widens
The military gap between Israel and the Arab nations on its borders has been growing for decades, said Ephraim Kam of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. Now, with Iraq neutralized, the threat of Arab armies rolling across Israel's borders "has disappeared," he said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=8&u=/ap/20030922/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_military


Weapon of mass population
Ever since Israel was created in 1948, starting a clash with the Arab world that has no end in sight, Jews have feared what Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat calls his "biological bomb." In Israel and the neighboring territories of Gaza and the West Bank, Arabs are reproducing at a rate double that of Jews.
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/21/Worldandnation/Weapon_of_mass_popula.shtml


Robert Fisk: a poignant Iraqi tragedy
The American soldier fired one shot from his machine-gun. That shot came through the car and hit Saad in the heart and came out of the back of the poor guy and scratched my arm and exited through the roof of the car." Then the Americans drove on. They didn't stop," Mr Cardone says.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4792.htm


Syria May Send Peacekeepers to Iraq
"Syria would be ready to send troops to Iraq only after the United Nations has the final say in Iraq and if a deadline for the American withdrawal (from Iraq) is put," said Bouthaina Shaaban, Syria's new minister of expatriates, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=9&u=/ap/20030922/ap_on_re_mi_ea/syria_iraq