OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, May 29, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – In what Israel sees as the Palestinians’ most potent weapon in the long run, a man of the 1948 Palestinians has broken the record by fathering 60 children.

The man, who lives in the Negev region south of what is now Israel, has married seven women, Al-Quds Press news agency reported quoting the Israel Insurance Association.

He broke the previous record held by a Palestinian in Al-Jalil town, inside the 1948 territories, who used to boast fathering 56 children, the London-based news agency added.

Ten more Palestinians in the Negev region each fathers up to 40 children, according to Palestinian sources.

On April 18, 1948, Palestinian Tiberius was captured by Menachem Begin's Irgun group, putting its 5,500 Palestinian residents in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Zionist mobs and 70,000 Palestinians fled.

On April 25, Irgun began bombarding civilian sectors of the Palestinian city of Jaffa - the largest city in Palestine at that time, terrifying the 750,000 inhabitants into panicky flight.

On May 14, the day before the creation of Israel on the rubble of Palestine and bodies of the Palestinians, Jaffa completely surrendered to the much better-equipped Zionist gangs and only about 4,500 of its population remained.

Israeli officials and academicians have urged the government to take “deterrent measures” against the soaring Palestinian birth rate in Negev, suggesting a law banning polygamy, Al-Quds Press said.

Israeli occupation authorities are already giving the Negev Palestinians hard time, depriving them of basic amenities under feeble excuses, preventing them from building homes and encouraging settlers to move in, it added.

Some reports even suggested that Israeli authorities sprayed Palestinians' crops in the area with killer chemicals.

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres is overseeing the Jewish settlement activity in the Negev.

He has drawn up a ten-year plan costing billions of dollars to develop the area and offer all possible privileges to Jewish settlers.

According to 2004 estimates by the Palestine Bureau of Statistics, Palestinians are projected to outnumber the Jewish population in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories by 2010.

Given the current 4% birth rate against a Jewish 1.9%, the Palestinian population is expected to rise to 6.2 million compared to 5.7 million Israelis.

Israel entices Jews worldwide, especially from North America, India and Ethiopia, and further, to leave their homelands and immigrate to face the growing Palestinian population.

However, Israel’s demographic efforts have received a serious setback recently by the reverse Jewish immigration thanks to the second Palestinian Intifada, which enters its fifth year this September.

The Jewish Agency has also admitted that the Al-Aqsa Intifada and sluggish Israeli economy had led to a significant dwindling of Jewish immigration to Israel in 2003.

As many as 600,000 Israeli Jews have become permanent citizens in North America, Australia, or Europe since the beginning of the Intifada, according to unofficial estimates.