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Israel Violates Truce As Arabs Discuss Crisis
GAZA CITY, July 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Monday that an Israeli helicopter attack against Palestinians, which killed three suspected Palestinian resistance activists, was a violation of the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire.
"It's a flagrant violation of the ceasefire and a crime against our people. We demand international protection," Arafat told journalists in Gaza after a meeting with Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen.
Meanwhile, in statements broadcast on Voice of Palestine radio, Palestinian cabinet secretary, Ahmad Abdel-Rahman, accused the Israeli government of turning its back on the would-be ceasefire between the two sides, which was agreed June 13 but has failed to stop the bloodshed.
"The murder of our three citizens reflects the state terrorism which [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon practices", Abdel-Rahman said.
"It is further proof of the aggressive policies of the Sharon government which claims to be in favor of a return to calm. Sharon is the last person to want calm and his cabinet is one of murder and not peace," he added.
Israel killed five Palestinians in the West Bank Sunday and launched air strikes on Syrian targets in Lebanon, wounding at least three people and drawing sharp criticism from friends and foes alike.
Meanwhile, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian resistance group that does not support Arafat or the peace process with Israel, claimed responsibility for the Yehud car bombs in a statement sent to the French news agency AFP.
It said its armed wing, the Wadiah Haddad Martyrs, had planned the attack "to avenge the deaths of the five Palestinian fighters killed Sunday."
Two car bombs were set off Monday in an Israeli town near Ben Gurion international airport, causing no casualties, AFP reported.
Israeli helicopter gunships assassinated three Palestinian activists Sunday in the West Bank, firing eight missiles on their car near the Palestinian town of Jenin.
Voice of Palestine radio named the three killed in Jenin as Mohammad Bishara, Sameh Dib and Walid Bishara.
Bishara was considered a key Jihad figure in the West Bank and survived an attempt on his life three weeks ago.
Israel radio said they were respectively a local leader of the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, a member of Arafat's Fatah movement, and a member of the radical Islamic Jihad movement.
It claimed their car was packed with explosives that were going to be used in an attack on an Israeli target, news agencies reported.
Israeli army officials declared, June 21, that they had been given the green light to resume targeted attacks on Palestinian resistance activists.
The approval followed an Israeli cabinet meeting attended by the militant premier, Ariel Sharon, who is now sued in Belgium for atrocities against Palestinians in 1982.
In another development, Israeli security forces arrested nearly two dozen Palestinians in the previous 24 hours, including a Palestinian Authority security official and a member of the resistance group, Hamas, witnesses said Monday.
Bader Soliman, a 28-year-old member of the Authority's preventive security forces in the West Bank, was arrested at an Israeli checkpoint between the northern towns of Jenin and Nablus, they said, news agencies reported.
Hamas official, Ezzeddeen Amarni, 31, was also seized in his home in the village of Yabed close to Jenin. Both men were taken overnight Sunday, witnesses said.
Another 20 Palestinians were arrested at an Israeli blockade on the road between the southern West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Khalhul.
In a serious development, Israeli warplanes destroyed Sunday a radar post deep in the heart of a Syrian army stronghold in eastern Lebanon, wounding at least two Syrian troops and a Lebanese soldier.
Israel claimed the raid was in response to an attack Friday by Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement on the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms, captured by Israel in 1967, which left one Israeli soldier seriously wounded.
Hezbollah, which has vowed to continue resistance until Israeli occupation forces pull out of Shebaa, responded by bombarding an Israeli post in the area.
No casualties were reported in the bombardment.
The current Israeli aggression comes amid growing Arab concern about the dangerous situation in the Middle East.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak prepared to host talks Monday on the deepening Arab-Israeli crisis with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz, AFP reported.
Arafat and Abdullah were also to meet together after their separate meetings with Mubarak, Egyptian sources said.
Crown Prince Abdullah was due in Egypt Monday for a three-day official visit, following a trip to France where he met U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The prince, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia due to the declining health of King Fahd, has rejected an invitation to visit the United States because of Washington's flagrant support of Israel in its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
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