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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clappy who wrote (49937)	4/12/2002 8:02:19 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Israel arrests thousands as Powell flies in By Phil Reeves in Jerusalem Independent.co.uk 12 April 2002 Blindfolded and handcuffed, hundreds of Palestinian men were detained for interrogation by Israeli agents yesterday as Ariel Sharon stepped up his ruthless military offensive in the West Bank. The acceleration came just hours before the arrival in Israel last night of the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, on a ceasefire mission that seems doomed to be devoured by the flames of war. Israeli officials said yesterday that about 4,000 Palestinians had been arrested during the fortnight-long invasion of Palestinian-run areas of the West Bank. Of these, 120 were on Israel's list of wanted "terrorists", officials said. The Israeli Prime Minister and his generals showed no sign of bending to a chorus of demands from the White House, Britain, the EU and others in the international community to end the assault, which grew louder still yesterday as the world got its first glimpse of its worst battlefield, Jenin. Foreign journalists and aid workers who got into the town of 180,000 found some homes reduced to rubble. Others had bites taken from their walls by passing tanks or were punctured by charred holes left by helicopter missiles. Water pipes and electricity poles were badly damaged. Residents insisted that the Palestinian death toll – at least 120 but it may prove considerably higher – includes civilians, some of whom were shot for breaking an army curfew. Last night, Israeli military bulldozers were destroying more of the Jenin refugee camp, which has been cut off from medical care, food supplies and electricity as Palestinian gunmen mounted their week-long resistance, killing 23 Israeli soldiers. Yesterday morning three dozen fighters – including a wounded 13-year-old boy – surrendered to the Israeli army in the camp, after running out of bullets. But sporadic shooting continued last night. "They have really bashed the place up," said one UN official, who yesterday drove through the town, which has been closed to outsiders for a week. As Mr Sharon pressed on with what he depicts as an anti-terrorist operation aimed at stopping attacks on Israel, General Powell has made it explicit that the US views Israel's strategy as misguided. He has sent increasingly understanding messages to the Palestinians in the past few days. His relatively tough words were moderated slightly by the White House, whose spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said that the US believed Mr Sharon was committed to peace – a view not shared by any Palestinians and questioned by a number of foreign diplomats. "However long the Israeli incursion continues, the problems will still be there," said General Powell yesterday, during a visit to Jordan, the latest stop in a regional tour in which he has been criticised for failing to go straight to Israel. "The violence and anger and frustration which feeds that will still be there unless we find a negotiating process that leads to a Palestinian state." Asked whether he was on an impossible mission the general snapped: "I don't like wallowing with pessimists. It is necessary for me to go." That much was clear from the scenes in Jenin yesterday, let alone other parts of the West Bank. According to Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, 3,000 people have been made homeless from the Jenin refugee camp. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday added his voice to the many expressing alarm over human rights abuses in the West Bank. A large number of the arrested Palestinians are being held under military law in heavily guarded Israeli detention centres without being charged or allowed access to lawyers. The Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, says it has evidence of torture. Earlier this week the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition from human rights organisations, including B'Tselem, demanding that detainees have access to lawyers. news.independent.co.uk