Middle East NEWS

[Sirotnikov]

NEWS THREAD

NO DISCUSSIONS PLEASE

Arch terrorist assassinated
A swat team with the aid of police and GSS assassinated yesterday 6 Hamas activists, among them Kais Adwan, the head of Hamas's military wing in the west bank. Security sources said that the 6 were involved in many terrorist acts and were killed by a missile shot at their house. A wearehouse with demolition material was found. Adwan was a senior in the cell that planned and comitted the terract in "Park" Hotel in Netanya on the eve of Pesah, the terract in "Maza" restaurant in Haifa, the "Sbaro" restaurant in Jerusalem and in the train station in Naharia half a year ago.

3 more "cooperators" found dead
3 cooperators which were suspected of aiding ISrael locate the Hamas terrorists were found dead later in the same village.

Failed assassination at Jihad commander
Israel failed to assassinate Daib Shwaiki, of the top Jihad commanders. Reportedly he wasn't hurt. 11 Palestinains were injured however, when IDF opened fire from a helicopter on his car. The commander stopped his car and ran away.

Hamas promises new kind of revenge
Hamas promised to revenge the 6 members, by a "new king of terract which will rock Israel". Reportedly they made threats even before to assassinate Sharon.

Bush: Peace can be reached without Arafat
Tonight bush said that peace in the ME can be reached without Arafat as well. "He let down his people, and there are other men in the Area that can lead a peace move - among them the Saudi crown Prince, President of Egypt and King of Jordan". Bush was speaking to a Brittish television network.

Sharon to gather Knesset for special announcement
Ariel Sharon said that he is going to gather the Knesset shortly to make a special announcement. This after a MK threatened to appeal to the Supreme Justice Court after Sharon didn't appear to a special Knesset rally, and has never officially declared war. Sharon's office responded that no decision to start war was made.

Teachers will bear arms to defend schools
The governement decided that some 1000 teachers will defend schools and kindergartens with no hired guards. Those teachers who have weapons lisences and are in military age.

Israeli arabs arrested after riots
A group of Israeli Arabs was rioting and throwing rocks on passing cars near Um-al-Fahem. The road was closed to traffic several times due to this. Later, a border-police unit forced the rioters back into the city, and arrested some. No casualties reported.

B'tselem: Israel tortures captives
B'tselemt claims that from reports it's been getting, Palestinian prisoners in Ofer camp near Ramallah, interrogators are using torture, including breaking people's toes. IDF says that the response lays in the PM's office which is responsible for GSS actions. Israeli Supreme Court of Justice ruled torture to be illegal, except for "ticking bomb" situations. Several terracts have been prevented since the incursion, and several arch-terrorists were captured or killed.

France: anti-semitic terract prevented
a Jewish community member discovered a 2kg bomb in a Jewish cemetery in Shtrassburg. The police neutralized the bomb. 3 suspects admitted to throwing Molotov Cocktails onto a synagogue in Monpelye. 5 more suspects were arrested.

[MOBIUS]

MORE NEWS - IDF SCUM SHOOT AT AMBULANCE!!!

I knew the IDF was into killing defenceless children such as the one caught on video at the beginning of the Intifada (apparently new Israeli tactics are to kill journalists to stop them filming the evidence, as at least 3 have been killed by the IDF in recent weeks!!!)

Now AMBULANCES ARE FAIR GAME!!!

Check the story out on B'Tselem's site, as well as the many other atrocities being committed against the Palestinians...

Over the past two weeks (28 February - 13 March), the intentional attacks on medical teams and the prevention of medical teams from treating the sick and wounded have been almost unprecedented. IDF soldiers have fired at ambulances, killing five Palestinian medical personnel who were on duty, wounded several members of ambulance medical teams, and damaging the ambulances. In addition, the IDF prevented medical treatment to the sick and wounded, even leaving people to bleed to death. Hospitals have been unable to function because of the damage to the electricity, water, and telephone infrastructure, and the blocking of access to some of them. As a result, the hospitals are unable to receive the wounded and sick, or obtain food and medicine.

B'Tselem is an Israeli human rights organisation!

Here's another human rights story from the BBC

Remember, whatever the Palestinians are doing - the Israelis are doing four times worse. At least that's how the casualty figures read...

[Sirotnikov]

And here's the reason why

Bomb found in Red Crescent ambulance

Friday, March 29, 2002 Nisan 16, 5762 Israel Time: 13:21 (GMT+2)

By Amos Harel, Amira Hass and Yosef Algazy , HA-ARETZ

A Palestinian ambulance was found carrying a bomb near Jerusalem on Friday. The bomb was hidden under a gurney on which a sick Palestinian child was lying. The driver confessed that these was not the first time that ambulances had been used to carry bombs.

The bomb was taken out of the ambulance and detonated in the presence of representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). "The ICRC understands the security concerns of the Israeli authorities and has always acknowledged their right to check ambulances, provided it does not unduly delay medical evacuations," the ICRC said in a statement on Friday. The Red Crescent expressed shock at the incident, and said they had started an internal investigation.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, the driver, Islam Jibril, 31, who was already on the IDF's blacklist, confessed to have tried to smuggle in the bomb. He admitted both that this was not the first time that an ambulance was used to transfer terrorists and bombs, and that Red Crescent workers are sent on terror missions, a charge that until now the Red Cross and Red Crescent have forcefully rejected.

Jibril said the bomb - configured as a belt to be worn by a suicide bomber - was given to him by Mahmoud Titi of the Al Aqsa Brigades. Sources in Nablus, affiliated with Titi, told Ha'aretz yesterday that they do not transfer weapons through IDF checkpoints and do not use ambulances, because checks at the checkpoints, and especially those of ambulances, are thorough.

Apparently, the ambulance, on its way from Nablus to Ramallah, went through four other checkpoints before the bomb was uncovered. Jibril was driving his sister-in-law and her three little children - one very sick. A physician, Dr. Rassan Hamdan, was sitting with the driver in front. According to Hamdan, soldiers searched the ambulance at the Hawara checkpoint outside Nablus, but did not check the IDs of the passengers or the driver. The ambulance then went through three other checkpoints, uninterrupted.

"A jeep suddenly sped scarily toward us, and signaled to us with its headlights. The soldiers got off the jeep and started shooting in the air. We stopped, and they shouted at us in Hebrew to get out of the vehicle," Hamdan said. The IDF reserve soldier who stopped the ambulance said that he became suspicious because the ambulance was driving very fast, but did not turn on the siren. When the ambulance did not stop despite the signals, the soldiers fired shots in the air, he told Ha'aretz.

Two or three hours later Hamdan, the woman and the three children were allowed to return to Ramallah.

[Ecthy]

Discussion ON

that's not a reason to shoot at every ambulance that crosses your way, especially those attacked before that bomb was found. BTW, there are more rumors now about Israeli soldiers attacking that church in Betlehem. Locals fear a massacre inside of the church should the Israelis storm it.

Source: http://www.spiegel.de that's right, it's .DE

[The Mad Monk]

U.S. Goes Back On Demads!

...or did they?

U.S. Eases Demand for Israel Pullout
_____Special Report_____



By Barry Schweid
AP Diplomatic Writer
Friday, April 5, 2002; 4:37 PM

WASHINGTON –– The White House eased back Friday from President Bush's demand that Israel immediately begin to pull its forces out Palestinian-held areas of the West Bank.

As Israeli tanks, attack helicopters and troops advanced against Palestinian militia, Fleischer said Israel needed time to digest what Bush expects of it.

"Major events don't necessarily happen overnight," Fleischer told reporters traveling with Bush in Texas. Still, he said, "the president expects results, and he expects them as soon as possible."

Secretary of State Colin Powell will leave for the region Sunday night and has no plans to meet with Yasser Arafat, Fleischer said without elaboration.

Powell's short-term goal is a cease-fire to stop the bloodletting.

His long-term goal is to start Israel and the Palestinians on a peacemaking track.

Both goals are elusive. Powell is on the spot, as are the two principal players in the region: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Authority.

Even if he is being granted some time, Sharon is under pressure from Bush to withdraw Israeli troops from Palestinian-held cities "without delay."

But on Friday, Israeli tanks moved into more Palestinian territory and attack helicopters battled hundreds of Palestinian gunmen in Nablus, the largest city on the West Bank, and in refugee camps.

Bush's demand was unconditional. But Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin ben-Eliezer said Thursday that unless the Palestinians cooperate with the United States to reach a cease-fire "Israel will continue its efforts to stop terror."

Equally on the spot, Arafat is under Bush pressure to confront terror and deal with it. And it could be his last chance to be treated by the administration as the leader of the Palestinians.

Powell consistently has argued the United States and Israel must deal with Arafat as the Palestinians' choice. Even the exile threatened by Sharon would not change that, Powell said this week.

His appears to be a lone voice at the top level of the U.S. government.

Vice President **** Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld both have urged Bush to suspend relations with Arafat. And Bush, rapidly losing patience, accused Arafat of betraying his people's hopes for nationhood by failing to oppose terrorists.

A cease-fire, the short-term goal, has eluded the intensive efforts of Anthony Zinni, the U.S. mediator who has met repeatedly with both sides in three separate missions to the region.

Powell intends to take over that chore while he is in the Middle East, with Zinni at his side, working for a breakthrough. It would then be Zinni's job to put the pieces together.

On Friday, Zinni called on Arafat, who is penned into his office in Ramallah by Israeli tanks, and told him "to take decisive action to end the violence," Philip Reeker, the deputy State Department spokesman, said.

The long-term goal, prodding Israel and the Palestinians toward peacemaking, is probably even more difficult.

Sharon is dead-set against peacemaking while Israel is under attack. The Bush administration has shifted gears, though.

Powell agreed with the prime minister on his trip to the region last June that there must be a period of calm before peacemaking could begin.

But with the European allies and Arab leaders demanding the Bush administration jump in, Bush has charged Powell with working on a 35-year-old U.N. blueprint: Israel should relinquish the land the Arabs lost in the 1967 war in exchange for peace and security.

On Friday, the U.N. Security Council backed Powell's mission with a resolution that demands Israel withdraw its troops "without delay." Last Saturday, the Council also called for a pullout and for Israel and the Palestinians to "move immediately to a meaningful cease-fire."

© 2002 The Associated Press

Again, my standing is that they never demanded an immediate withdrawal in the first place. This seems more like restating what they said yesterday so that the slower ones in the media establishment (most of them) get it right this time. Even so, it appears that some still can't get it right; for example, look at this paragraph from the above article:

Even if he is being granted some time, Sharon is under pressure from Bush to withdraw Israeli troops from Palestinian-held cities "without delay."

"without delay", complete with quotes, which indicate a quotation, which implies that Bush actually said this at some point. Where, exactly, did he say this?

It was said, OTOH, in the UN resolution.

[Sirotnikov]

I knew the IDF was into killing defenceless children such as the one caught on video at the beginning of the Intifada

Argue with this:

Shooting Error

Post date 03.28.02 | Issue date 04.01.02

Although it happened almost a year and a half ago, who can forget twelve-year-old Muhammad al-Dura dying in his father's arms at Netzarim Crossing in the Gaza Strip, a victim of routine and intentional Israeli brutality. At least that's how French television depicted it in a video clip replayed countless times the world over. The image quickly attained iconic status, and Muhammad became the poster child for the second Palestinian intifada. (In its own narration of the clip, the Palestinian Authority spoke of the "beauty of the martyr," whose blood flows "like a waterfall.") But now a March 17 documentary aired by Germany's ARD television suggests something extraordinary: that Muhammad was killed not by Israeli soldiers, but by Palestinian gunmen, perhaps deliberately to create precisely such a photogenic martyr. The French footage, it turns out, was heavily edited--from six minutes to 50 seconds--and the French won't let anyone see the tape they didn't air. What's more, the Palestinian Authority didn't allow an autopsy on the boy and never released the bullet that killed him for outside scrutiny. ARD has done its own forensic investigation, however, and concluded that the shot that entered Muhammad's crouching body could not have come from the location where Israeli soldiers were positioned. ARD's report has been covered extensively in the German press (Die Welt headlined its article, "RICOCHETING TRUTH"). As of this writing, however, no major American newspaper or TV network--including the many that ran the original footage of Muhammad's death--has mentioned it.

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020401&s=notebook040102shooting

[Sirotnikov]

Re: Discussion ON

Originally posted by Ecthelion
that's not a reason to shoot at every ambulance that crosses your way, especially those attacked before that bomb was found.

It's a great reason to forbid ambulances from moving freely.

And it's not that we didn't know they are used to trasnfer weapons and militants. We've seen it, but we didn't actually capture one.

BTW, there are more rumors now about Israeli soldiers attacking that church in Betlehem. Locals fear a massacre inside of the church should the Israelis storm it.

that's right - RUMORS. The palestinians trying to freak people out. Obviously it would be suicide for Israel to storm that.

A russian website reported that an Italian journalist said that they priests are held hostage by armed Palestinians and they treat the place with no respect.

In the middle of :

http://presscenter.ru/index.php?subj=0&ch=2&id=150511

[Ecthy]

Priests taken hostage? That's just rumors, Siro

[Sirotnikov]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1911000/1911181.stm

This is full of lies.

I've seen on CNN that Israeli army does lift the curfew every day for several hours and supplies food.

I also saw on CNN how International aid groups being food and medical supplies.

Arafat is also being given food and medical supplies by the IDF.

Also, yesterday, a group of IDF soldiers gave 1500 NIS ($350) to a family at whose house they were staying.

So BBC should cut their ambigious crap.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Also, yesterday, a group of IDF soldiers gave 1500 NIS ($350) to a family at whose house they were staying.

That was a group of soldiers telling lies to Karmela Menashe because of her pro-Palestinian reporting. Lo hayu dvarim meolam.

[Ecthy]

I find it sad how he's fighting against windmills. As stated by me on the other thread, both sides seem to be enjoying the use of mass manipulation. It seems everyone is willing to believe in only one side, and then with full passion. Instead of being enlightened and looking at the whole picture. The recent development shows that for many conflicts you need 2 guys. But that still doesn't mean it's all Israel's fault. And in the end, how can we Europeans and Americans know what is lies and what is not? We can only tell by pictures, but what pictures we get to see is in the hands of news stations and the Israeli military

And by our American youngsters I can see how easily people seem to be brainwashed, so I'm not willing to blindly accept what our posters from down there tell us. Give me news, pictures, figures, but spare me the freaking discussion

[Eli]

Syria evacuates troops from Israeli border

The goal is to reduce the possible damage from an Israeli retaliation to the Hizballah attacks.

[Sirotnikov]

http://presscenter.ru/index.php?subj=0&ch=2&id=150511

À òåïåðü... Âðóò. Ïðîñòî âðóò. Èòàëüÿíñêèé (êóäà óæ íåçàâèñèìåå) æóðíàëèñò çâîíèò èç Õðàìà Ðîæäåñòâà Õðèñòîâà è ãîâîðèò î òîì, ÷òî Âåëè÷àéøàÿ Ñâÿòûíÿ çàõâà÷åíà âîîðóæåííûìè ïàëåñòèíñêèìè áàíäèòàìè, îíè îñêâåðíÿþò Õðàì, à ðóññêèå ñâÿùåíèêè è ðîññèéñêèå ïîëèòèêè îñóæäàþò... Èçðàèëü.

Íà âåñü ìèð ïðîäóäåëè î òîì, ÷òî êàòîëè÷åñêèé ñâÿùåííèê ïîãèá ïîä îãíåì èçðàèëüñêèõ òàíêîâ, à îí çâîíèò â Âàòèêàí è ãîâîðèò, ÷òî âïîëíå æèâ, çäîðîâ, ÷åãî è Ïàïå æåëàåò...

Translation:

And now... lying. Simply lying. An Italian (much more independant) journalist called from the Nativity Church and said, that the holies of holies is captured by armed Palestinian bandits, they are desecrating the church, but Russian clergy and politicians are blaming... Israel.

To the whole world they cried out that a Catholic priest was killed from Israeli tank faire, but the priest telephones Vatican and informs them, that he is fully alive and well, which he wishes for the Pope...

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Give me news, pictures, figures, but spare me the freaking discussion

You should follow your own advise

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Eli
That was a group of soldiers telling lies to Karmela Menashe because of her pro-Palestinian reporting. Lo hayu dvarim meolam.

But if it was on ååàìä it has to be true