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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (164584)	3/17/2003 6:24:52 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574056

Gaza Deaths Deal Fresh Blow to Peace NUSEIRAT, Gaza Strip (March 17) - Eleven Palestinians including a four-year-old girl were killed in the Gaza Strip on Monday, most of them during Israeli swoops that touched off fierce battles with gunmen, witnesses said. The bloodshed that killed 10 in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and the town of Beit Lehiya in the north was a fresh blow to U.S. and British attempts to promote the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian peace as possible war in Iraq approaches. Another Palestinian man died in a stone-throwing clash against soldiers in the Khan Younis refugee camp, Palestinian witnesses and medics said. The army was checking the report. Israeli infantry in armored personnel carriers, backed by several tanks and attack helicopters, rolled into Nuseirat, a stronghold of the militant Islamic group Hamas, before dawn and left several hours later after demolishing a house. The incursion came a day after an Israeli army bulldozer killed an American woman protester in the Gaza Strip as she demonstrated against a house demolition in the southern town of Rafah. The army called the death a ''regrettable accident.'' At Nuseirat, witnesses said Mohammed a-Sa'afin, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad militant group, took to the roof of his home after Israeli special forces surrounded it. ''Give up, think of your children,'' an Israeli officer shouted at him. Sa'afin replied with pipe bombs and a volley of bullets from his Kalashnikov rifle. He was shot dead. Palestinian witnesses and hospital officials said six other Palestinians were killed in the fighting, including a 13-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl, whose age medical officials initially put at two. At least 12 people were wounded. ''We were all squeezed into one room, hiding, because of the heavy fighting outside. Israeli tanks were near our house,'' said a relative of four-year-old Elham al-Assar. ''Elham stood inside the house with her brothers and cousins. A single bullet penetrated the house and hit her in the chest.'' Near Beit Lehiya, Israeli forces shot dead two members of the Palestinian naval police and a third man who was a civilian, Palestinian security officials said. The army said it exchanged fire with gunmen during a search for ''terror cells'' in the area. PALESTINIAN LAWMAKER ARRESTED Israeli military sources said the aim of the Gaza operation, one of dozens the army has launched in the strip since the start of a Palestinian uprising for statehood in September 2000, was to detain militants behind attacks on Israelis. Israeli security sources said that the overnight arrests included Palestinian lawmaker Husam Khader from the West Bank refugee camp of Balata. Khader is best known as the leader of a lobby group for Palestinian refugees, though the Israeli sources said he was also a guiding hand behind a militant offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. Two members of that group were killed on Monday in a mysterious explosion in a garage in the West Bank village of Saida, Palestinian security sources said. 'FUNERAL' FOR U.S. PEACE ACTIVIST In Rafah, hundreds of Palestinians held a symbolic funeral for Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American student killed on Sunday by an Israeli bulldozer. The Israeli army said Corrie, from Olympia, Washington, and other protesters had been acting irresponsibly by ''intentionally placing themselves in a combat zone.'' It said visibility in the bulldozer was limited and its operator had not seen her. ''The Israel Defence Forces express sorrow and continue to investigate the incident,'' the army said in a statement. But the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement, to which Corrie belonged, said she had been clearly visible. ''When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside, (Corrie) climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it, wearing a fluorescent jacket, to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing,'' the group said. ''The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was pulled under the pile of dirt and rubble.'' Amnesty International condemned Corrie's killing, calling for an independent inquiry into her death and a suspension of U.S. transfers of military goods such as bulldozers to Israel. U.S. President George W. Bush, hoping to win European and Arab support for a war with Iraq, said on Friday Washington would release a peace ''road map'' intended to end the violence and establish the groundwork for a Palestinian state once a new Palestinian prime minister with ''real authority'' takes office. At least 1,943 Palestinians and 726 Israelis have been killed since the uprising began. Reuters 15:27 03-17-03 Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited.