Israeli soldiers carry out more detention in Palestinian areas

GAZA, August 28 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As the United States pointedly ignored Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's call for resistance groups to reinstate a shattered truce on Wednesday, August 27, the Israeli army stepped up its raids on Palestinian-ruled areas.

Arafat appeal was also rejected by Islamic resistance movement Hamas.

The White House dismissed Arafat’s call and said peace efforts should focus on dismantling resistance networks.

"Actions to dismantle ‘terrorist’ organizations and to dismantle ‘terrorist’ networks are what is needed and what's most important," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

She criticized the Palestinian leader as an obstacle to peace.

"Arafat has once again shown himself to be part of the problem, and the security forces need to be consolidated under Prime Minister Abbas," she said in press statements carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"He is not part of the solution," the White House spokeswoman told reporters in Crawford, Texas where Bush is now on vacation at his ranch.   

"The way forward in Israel, in the Middle East is by dismantling terrorist networks, by dismantling terrorist organizations, and one of the first steps in the roadmap is the consolidation of security forces under prime minister Abbas," Buchan said.

"That must happen," she added.

At the State Department, deputy spokesman Philip Reeker offered a similar appraisal, refusing to even mention Arafat's appeal in a series of terse sentences.

"Terrorism has to stop now," he told reporters. "There has to be an end to violence. It has to be unconditional. They've got to end the violence."

Hamas Rejects

"There has to be an end to violence. It has to be unconditional. They've got to end the violence," Reeker

For it part,  Hamas rejected Thursday Arafat appeal to renew the truce which was called off after the killing of one of its co-founders last week.

"Hamas rejects the appeal (by Arafat) to resume the truce as the Zionist occupation has the torpedoed the truce with their assassinations of women, children and Palestinian political leaders," Hamas political leader Abdelaziz Rantissi told AFP.

"We cannot speak about a truce while aggression against the Palestinian people continues."

Earlier Wednesday, Arafat called on Palestinian factions to renew their commitment to the ceasefire they had ended after Israeli assassination  of Hamas senior political leader Ismail Abu Shanab.

The move has added a new twist to the power struggle between the U.S.-shunned Arafat and the U.S.-backed Abbas who along with his security chief Mohammed Dahlan is trying to wrest authority over all Palestinian forces from Arafat.

Abbas currently controls three of the many Palestinian security branches - the civil police, civil defense and preventive security force.

The 35,000-40,000 strong national security force and other branches such as intelligence, the navy and border police, are still under Arafat's command.

But the cabinet decided Wednesday to include the security forces in its general budget, as a battle for control over them intensified with Arafat.

An allocation was made under the heading "National Security Forces" to cover personnel whose salaries were previously paid directly from Arafat's office, officials said.

Abbas and Dahlan have been seeking to wrest control of the myriad Palestinian security forces from Arafat with U.S. and Israeli blessing.

Abbas said in a statement on Wednesday that Israel is to the one to blame for any possible repercussions for its decision to step up its recent military escalations.

"This brutal Israeli government policy will only take us back to the vicious cycle of violence," Abbas said in a statement Wednesday.

“Israel must understand there is no military solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," he said.

After the Cabinet meeting, Information minister Nabil Amr told reporters that the cabinet held "Israel fully responsible for this deterioration, and all the grave implications it has on regional stability."

Amr also said that Abbas would seek a vote of confidence from the Palestinian parliament on his first 100 days in office in the coming week.

More Raids

In the meanwhile, the Israeli army said Wednesday it had detained 32 “wanted” activists in a series of overnight raids in the West Bank, including a string of Hamas activists.

They also detonated an alleged Islamic Jihad bomb-making factory uncovered during a raid in the town of Nablus.

Early Thursday, Israeli troops dynamited the West Bank home of an Islamic Jihad activist, a Palestinian security source said.

The army destroyed the home of Hani Zakaria in Qabatyah, in the northern West Bank, the source said.

The same source said that the Israeli army had pulled out of the old quarter of the West Bank town of Nablus only to move into the neighboring Ballata refugee center where it imposed a curfew and launched search raids.

Meanwhile, ten mortars were fired, without causing injury, towards Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip overnight Wednesday, a military source said.

A Palestinian teenager on Wednesday died of his injuries, becoming the second civilian victim of the abortive Israeli air raid in the Gaza Strip the previous day, medics here said.

Mohammad Balusha, 17, was near the vehicle hit by rocket fire from an Israeli helicopter Tuesday in the Jabalya area of the Gaza Strip, the medics said.

The Israeli army is also ready for a massive incursion into large swathes of the Gaza Strip, only waiting orders for moving, Israeli Yedioth Aharanot reported.

“The army is ready to resume land operations deep into the Gaza Strip,” the paper quoted senior officers in the army’s southern district command.

Israel had earlier withdrawn from some parts of the Gaza Strip following the truce. Palestinians had then considered the pullouts with skepticism.