An
official statement released after Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting said
Israeli ministers had decided that "Israel will not cooperate with
those who do Arafat’s bidding" as Palestinian Prime
Minister-designate Ahmed Qorei sought to win backing for his new
government.
"All
Palestinian governments must adopt a policy which disavows terror,
unifies the security forces under one body not controlled by Arafat,
advance security and diplomatic reforms and demonstrate independence
from Arafat."
Israel
insists on associating the Palestinian resistance with the
internationally-denounced phenomenon of “terrorism”. Following the
9/11 attacks on the U.S., almost all Palestinian resistance factions
were blacklisted by Washington and Europe.
Qorei,
who agreed to a request by Arafat replace Mahmud Abbas, has been warned
by Israel that he will be judged as a "partner for peace" by
his determination to take on what it called “the hardliners”.
Arrests,
Demolitions
 |
|
“His
expulsion is an option, his liquidation is another option,”
Olmert, left
|
On the ground, the Israeli army made a series of arrests of Palestinian
resistance activists and destroyed the home of a wanted suspect
overnight, Palestinian and Israeli security sources said Sunday.
The
army dynamited a two-story family home of Islamic Jihad member Bashar
Shawarna at Silat al-Harithiya, near the West Bank town of Jenin, they
said.
It
also arrested a member of the Islamic group Hamas, Ali Hassan Faradjeh,
in a West Bank town, just north of Jerusalem, who was allegedly planning
a bomb attack in the holy city, an Israeli military source said.
The
arrest followed an operation Saturday in which Israeli police sappers
operating in occupied east Jerusalem destroyed three explosive belts
which were due to be used in bomb attacks, the sources said.
The
belts were (allegedly) hidden inside a washing machine in al-Azzariyeh
village on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem's Old City, they
said.
They
were discovered following information provided by several Hamas
activists arrested over the last few days.
The
same source said that 15 wanted Palestinians were arrested overnight
while Israeli troops on patrol in the West Bank came under fire in
separate incidents in Ramallah, Nablus and by a settlement near Jenin.
Meanwhile,
Palestinian sources said a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an
armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement, had been arrested by the
Israeli army at his home in Nablus.
There
was no immediate confirmation from the Israelis.
Palestinian
security sources also said that Israeli tanks had partially destroyed
around 15 houses in a limited incursion at a refugee camp in the Gaza
town of Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
Two
houses were completely destroyed in a similar incursion near the Morag
settlement in southern Gaza.
Israeli
sources, however, said that while they had discovered tunnel-digging
equipment in uninhabited buildings in the area, none had been destroyed.
However,
other "structures" had been flattened Thursday night which
were believed to have been used by Palestinian militants as shelter for
firing on Israeli troops, he added.
Defiant
Arafat
Meanwhile,
thousands of people have gathered outside Arafat's offices in Ramallah
in recent days to express their support for the symbol of Palestinian
nationalism.
Hundreds
of students gathered at the Muqataa Sunday morning in the latest
outpouring of support and a series of demonstrations by different groups
in support of Arafat was also held in Gaza City.
Arafat
himself addressed by telephone a crowd of 20,000 gathered in the main
square of Rachidiyeh refugee camp in southern Lebanon Sunday, promising
to thwart Israeli efforts to expel him.
"I
tell you that any attempts to get our people to capitulate will fail,
because with God's help we will not kneel down," he told the crowd.
Palestinian
negotiations minister Saeb Erakat said that Israel was behaving like
"the mafia".
"These
threats of physical elimination or expulsion are acts of the mafia, not
of government," Erakat told AFP Sunday.
According
to the Israeli Yediot Aharonot Sunday, Sharon is wary of
upsetting Washington.
"Sharon
does not want a clash with the whole world and definitely does not want
to go against the Americans. That's why Arafat's expulsion is not
imminent," one Minister told the daily.
However,
the hawkish Education Minister Limor Livnat told the paper:
“Notwithstanding our important and friendly relationship with the
Americans, we do not take our orders from them."
The
Palestinian parliament was due to meet Sunday to install Qorei as Prime
Minister but the session was put off indefinitely amid disagreements
over the composition of his team.
After
a meeting of the mainstream Fatah movement's central committee, Qorei
said: "Negotiations are continuing and we are awaiting a unified
position from Fatah members about the formation of cabinet."
