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Israeli Incursions Continue Amid New Calls For Withdrawal
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Oct 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Three Palestinians were killed early Friday in the north of the Gaza Strip, Israeli army radio reported.
The radio said the men were part of a four-man group that was intercepted by Israeli troops as they tried to get through the security fence surrounding the illegal Israeli settlement of Dugit, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The fourth man, according to the report, escaped into Palestinian-ruled territory.
A Palestinian security source said Israeli tanks had fired shells and heavy machine-guns into the area around the village of Beit Lahiya and penetrated into autonomous Palestinian territory.
The incident came as Israeli forces maintained their weeklong grip on six Palestinian cities in the West Bank, despite international calls for them to withdraw.
Israeli security cabinet pledged early Friday to pull out, but gave no definite timeline, saying the Palestinians would first have to give security guarantees.
The U.S. earlier this week strongly rebuked Israel for its invasions into Palestinian territory and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called for an "immediate" Israeli withdrawal.
The latest deaths brought the toll from the 13-month Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against illegal Israeli occupation to 929, including 729 Palestinians and 178 Israelis, according to Western figures.
Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa on Friday condemned the "massacre" in the West Bank village of Beit Rima and called on the international community to take measures to end to Israel's military campaign.
The Israeli army moved into the West Bank village on Wednesday as part of an unprecedented military operation which followed last week's assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister by the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
"The international community's silence and its unjustifiable apathy in dissuading the Israeli government is sparking great wrath across the Arab world," said Moussa in a statement.
The Arab League Secretary General also called on the United States, the main peace-broker in the region and Israel's chief ally, "to firmly intervene for an end to Israeli aggressions and guarantee an unconditional Israeli withdrawal from the [autonomous] Palestinian territories."
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell this week renewed a U.S. call for Israel's "immediate" withdrawal from Palestinian six towns in the West Bank.
The U.N. Security Council met for 90 minutes Thursday and called on Israel in a non-binding statement to withdraw immediately from Palestinian-ruled territories.
In a press statement, Security Council president Richard Ryan, Ireland's ambassador to the United Nations, said that the Council members "supported statements in capitals calling for immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Area A," which referred to parts of the West Bank under Palestinian control.
In issuing the call for an Israeli withdrawal, Ryan said "members agreed that the Security Council should speak with one voice on this matter."
Unlike a resolution, a statement to the press has no legal weight - it does not even carry the moral authority of a formal statement read in the council chamber, which becomes part of the U.N. record, said AFP.
Several diplomats said, however, that the fact that the council had managed to agree on anything to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a step forward.
U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte - who threatened earlier this week to veto a legally binding resolution on Israel - said the statement "represents an endorsement of the diplomatic efforts that have been taken on the ground."
Diplomats said the agreement to Thursday's statement was due less to a change in U.S. policy than to Israel's escalation of the crisis to a point which U.N. special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, has described as "the most dangerous moment for a decade."
On Thursday, France accused Israel of breaching international human rights regulations, describing the six-day military siege on the Palestinians as something that "one could not be silent about", said Francois Rivaso, spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry, Palestinian news agency (WAFA) reported.
Rivaso added that the Holy Family Hospital in Bethlehem, which includes a nursery and an orphanage and which is under French protection, has been subjected several times during the last few days to Israeli firing - which could lead to severe repercussions.
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