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Israeli Tanks Remain Poised in Front of Palestinian Villages
JERUSALEM, Aug 15 (News Agencies) - Israel kept tanks remained poised to strike at Palestinian autonomous towns Wednesday, amid stepped-up Palestinian pressure for international action in the Occupied Territories.
Residents of the Palestinian towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour, in the Bethlehem area, said around 25 tanks and armored troop carriers were massed nearby after moving into the area overnight in a fresh Israeli show of force in the West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has threatened military intervention in the Bethlehem region following automatic arms fire from Beit Jala towards the Gilo settlement near East Jerusalem on Tuesday.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said on public radio, "There are red lines that nobody may cross. One of them is shooting at Gilo. There will be no more shooting at Gilo."
Sources close to the defense ministry, cited on public radio, said commanders on the ground had postponed an incursion into Beit Jala.
Later Wednesday, Israeli tanks moved into an area in the southern Gaza Strip under full Palestinian control and opened fire before withdrawing two hours later, a Palestinian security official said.
Israelis and Palestinians exchanged gunfire in nearby Rafah throughout most of the day, military sources and witnesses said.
These operations come less than a day after Israeli tanks and bulldozers charged into the northern West Bank town of Jenin, described by Israeli army chief Shaul Mofaz as a "city of bombers," demolishing a police station.
The Jenin raid was Israel's deepest incursion into Palestinian territory since the uprising began on September 28, 2000. It also represented one of the most serious breaches so far of the Palestinians' limited autonomy.
Meanwhile, there was intense diplomatic activity on the Palestinian side Wednesday.
In Cairo, it was announced that an emergency meeting of the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers, which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has repeatedly asked for, would be held in the coming days.
"The ministerial meeting will discuss what measures to take at the Arab and international levels facing Israeli practices," Arab League chief, Amr Mussa, said after a meeting with Arafat, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and his Jordanian counterpart, Abdel Ilah al-Khatib.
The four-way meeting came on the heels of a meeting of Arab information ministers aimed at coordinating an Arab media strategy and countering what they called Israeli "disinformation".
In New York, ambassadors representing Islamic countries at the United Nations met to discuss another Palestinian request; this time for an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the crisis in the Middle East.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Palestinian observer to the U.N., Nasser Al-Kidwa, said the Council "has the obligation to effectively and immediately intervene to put an end to the present tragic situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem."
But, Washington said it remained opposed to any U.N. intervention, insisting only on the goal of moving to full implementation of the Mitchell plan and moving to that goal as quickly as possible.
For his part, U.S. President George W. Bush reiterated his call for restraint and said "war was avoidable".
"I'm confident that the [Israeli and Palestinian] leaderships will understand that war is avoidable and will work to bring peace. The parties must, must, make up their mind that peace is preferable to war," he said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army shot dead 25-year-old Imad Abu Sneineh, a member of the armed wing Arafat's Fatah movement in Hebron in the southern West Bank, Palestinian officials said.
Five thousand Palestinians gathered in Hebron for his funeral, witnesses said.
The Jewish state has enacted a policy of liquidating Palestinian activists if Arafat's Palestinian Authority "fails" to arrest them first.
Ten Hamas activists have been killed by Israel in targeted attacks since mid-July, and more than 40 Palestinian activists have been assassinated since the start of the current uprising.
The Hebron killing brought to 719 the death toll since the start of the Intifada. The dead include 551 Palestinians and 146 Israelis.
Israel's incursions since Tuesday have been portrayed by the government as retaliation for two bomb attacks last week, one of which killed 16, including the bomber, the other of which killed only the bomber.
Sharon has warned that more military action could be on the way.
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