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Violence Flares As Israel Plans New Settlement
GAZA CITY, March 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Palestinian was killed by Israeli troops near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip Friday, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government risks throwing fuel on the fire by proposing to build yet another settlement in the Palestinian territories.
The violence erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during protests against Jewish settlements and the Israeli economic blockade of Palestinian areas, BBC reports.
Only hours after Sharon returned from the United States, where he repeated that there would be no peace talks as long as violence continues, Osama Hassan Selim, a 25-year-old Palestinian security officer, was shot dead by the Israeli army in Deir al-Balah in the southern Gaza Strip near the Kfar Darom settlement, Palestinian medical sources said.
His death brought to 443 the number of people killed since violence broke out in the region nearly six months ago, with most of the dead Palestinians.
In further violence, at least 17 Palestinians were wounded by rubber-coated metal bullets as demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops after weekly Muslim prayers near Ramallah in the West Bank, witnesses said.
Palestinian journalist Ahmed al-Zaki, covering the incident for Oman television, was among those hurt, one witness said, adding that no one there was critically injured.
Earlier Friday, police said a bomb exploded overnight in an industrial area of the Israeli coastal city of Hertzlia, north of Tel Aviv, but there were no reports of injuries.
Meanwhile, on his return from the United States hours earlier, Sharon said he had won U.S. backing for his refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians under fire.
"There will be no negotiations under pressure and violence," Sharon said at the end of his trip.
In addition, a Sharon aide confirmed that preliminary plans had been drawn up for a new Jewish settlement of 6,000 homes south of Jerusalem. The aide, Raanan Gissin, said construction would only begin in the event of a peace agreement with the Palestinians, the Washington Post reports.
Although it said the move will require approvals from other agencies and could take years to carry out, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's top adviser Nabil Abu Rudeina slammed the plans for a new 6,000 Jewish homes in the West Bank, saying that "peace and settlement-building do not go together."
Some 200,000 Jewish settlers already live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in 1967, and another 200,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, which the Jewish state annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.
Palestinian officials said such building plans hurt peace prospects. "Sharon began his political life by putting obstacles in the path of peace. What he is doing now is placing further obstacles," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat, the Post adds.
Only Friday, the armed wing of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas claimed three separate mortar attacks on the Gaza Strip settlements in the past week.
In reaction, Sharon said, "those who take part in terror and their supporters will be dealt with as one must deal with terrorists, but with an effort to avoid an escalation."
The former general had described Arafat Wednesday as the main obstacle to peace, accusing him of having "reverted to terrorism."
Abu Rudeina rejected these remarks Friday, saying they were a "threatening message" to next week's Arab summit in Jordan, and urged Sharon to "choose between a policy of peace and a policy of threats."
Referring to unconfirmed reports by Israeli military radio that Sharon, during a meeting with U.S. members of Congress, had requested that Washington cut its military aid to Egypt, Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said that whether the United States provides military aid to Egypt is a purely domestic U.S. issue.
In an interview published Friday in the government daily Al-Ahram, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had said without elaborating that, if the report were true, "we will have another attitude toward Sharon."
For his part, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa told the Israeli Yediot Aharonot daily he believed that "the entire Arab world will never accept Sharon's logic".
"The Palestinians will not agree to submit to Sharon's will, and nobody from our side will advise them to do it," he added.
Mussa's words were confirmed later Friday when Faysal Husseini, the Palestinian official in charge of the Jerusalem issue, said "the Intifada is a fight for independence and will result in the creation of state, putting an end to the plans aiming to annihilate the Palestinians as a people.
Abu Rudeina also said Friday that Arafat had spoken with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell overnight to discuss the situation in the territories.
The conversation, initiated by Powell, "focused on the U.S. role" in the region and "the need to pressure Israel to end the closure" of Palestinian areas, Abu Rudeina said.
With the Arab summit in Amman only four days away, Palestinian economy and trade minister Maher al-Masri criticized "the Islamic Development Bank [IDB] whose task is to provide the Palestinians with Arab aid [but] does not have a mechanism to deliver this financial aid."
An October summit of Arab leaders in Cairo, convened at the beginning of the Palestinian uprising, pledged one billion dollars for the Palestinians, split between two funds overseen by the Saudi-based IBD.
Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf said Tuesday that so far only $312 million dollars have been placed in the accounts.
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