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Reuters eport: Palestian official says Israeli force enters Jericho.

by Dan Mattson (handyman [at] california.com)
We hould not be suprised if, under the cover of the media coverage of the New York and DC attacks, more like this happen. Israelis and Palestians gave blood today for victims in New York.
Thursday September 13, 9:15 AM

Palestinian official says Israeli force enters Jericho

By Adel Abu Nimeh

JERICHO, West Bank (Reuters) -
An Israeli armoured force rumbled
into the Palestinian-ruled city of Jericho under the cover of
darkness early on Thursday and attacked Palestinian security
offices, a Palestinian security official said.

The incursion coincided with a new U.S. call for
Israeli-Palestinian truce talks as Washington sought to put
together a world coalition against terror following the attacks on New York\'s World Trade
Center and the Pentagon in Washington.

The security official said 12 Israeli tanks, accompanied by bulldozers, moved two km (1.2
miles) inside Palestinian-ruled territory and attacked a training centre used by Palestinian
forces. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

An Israeli military spokeswoman declined comment on the information. On Sunday,
Palestinian gunmen shot dead two Israelis in an attack on a van carrying teachers to school
in Israeli-occupied territory north of Jericho.

\"There is fierce resistance to the Israelis. The tanks are moving towards Palestinian
headquarters, where all the Palestinian security offices are located,\" Palestinian cabinet
minister Saeb Erekat, a Jericho resident, told Reuters.

Erekat, a peace negotiator, accused Israel of launching an offensive against the Palestinians
while world attention was focused on the hijack-suicide attacks that toppled the World
Trade Center and turned a part of the Pentagon into an inferno.

Palestinian security officials said Israeli forces that took up positions in Palestinian-ruled
areas on the edges of the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday advanced early on Thursday
and destroyed a government building they had shelled from a distance.

There were no reports of casualties.

In fighting on Wednesday in and around Jenin, Israeli troops killed at least seven
Palestinians, hospital officials and witnesses said.

Later on Wednesday, Palestinian gunmen shot dead a Jewish settler woman travelling in a
car near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, said a spokesman for the settler umbrella group,
YESHA.

In apparent retaliation, Israeli fire destroyed two security posts in Qalqilya and one in the
nearby town of Salfit, Palestinian witnesses said.

POWELL URGES DIALOGUE

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had urged Israeli and
Palestinian leaders to hold truce talks even in the midst of the crisis over Tuesday\'s
devastating attacks on New York and Washington.

He said he spoke by telephone with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

\"I encouraged all sides to do everything they can to get this process of meetings started that
we have all been waiting for, for Mr Arafat and Mr Peres to find an opportunity in the very
near future to meet and not have protracted discussions about where to meet,\" Powell told
a news conference.

\"It\'s more important to meet.\"

Speaking to reporters on the margins of an emergency meeting of European Union foreign
ministers, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said the situation in the Middle East
was \"very, very grave\".

He said he had spoken to Arafat and Peres on Wednesday to make his views known,
adding that if they were to seize the chance of a ceasefire, \"far-sighted decisions are called
for\".

Peres told Israel Radio he hoped the Palestinian Authority would note the attacks in the
United States and crack down on Palestinian militants behind a wave of suicide bombings
in Israel in recent months.

\"The Palestinians have to say they are completely against the terror and those that send
them,\" Peres said.

Nabil Abu Rdainah, an aide to Arafat, accused Israel of \"taking advantage of the
international situation to escalate its war against the Palestinian territories\".

Israel says it had information a bomber who killed three Israelis at a railway station on
Sunday had hidden in Jenin and the Palestinian Authority had refused requests to arrest
him.

Calling Jenin a \"terrorists nest\", Israel has said at least six suicide bombers who carried out
attacks in the past year of violence had set off on their missions from the city.

At least 569 Palestinians and 166 Israelis have been killed since violence began last
September after peace talks stalled.

ARAFAT DELAYS SYRIA VISIT

On the diplomatic front, Abu Rdainah said Arafat delayed a visit to Syria on Wednesday
because of \"the current circumstances\".

Arafat, who gave blood in Gaza on Wednesday for victims of the attacks in the United
States, has sent his condolences to the U.S. government and people. Palestinian militant
groups have denied any involvement, but not all issued condemnations.

Some Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus and Arab East Jerusalem rejoiced
publicly on Tuesday in an expression of frustration at what they see as U.S. support for
Israel.

But dozens of Palestinian men, women and children gathered on Wednesday in front of the
U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem, lighting candles and placing flowers along its walls.

Some of the placards they carried read: \"Terror is our common enemy\" and \"We are
victims too\".

Israelis also held memorial vigils and donated blood.
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