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Arafat Appeals to World Leaders to Help Return Palestinian Headquarters
JERUSALEM, Aug 11 (News Agencies) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat appealed Saturday for world pressure on Israel to hand back his people's unofficial Jerusalem headquarters, Orient House, as Israeli police violently repelled demonstrators hoping to enter the building.
Arafat wrote to the leaders of the United States, Russia and China, among others, asking for help in returning the Palestine Authority's unofficial base seized by Israel on Friday in response to a devastating Palestinian bombing in Jerusalem a day earlier.
His appeal came as other Palestinian leaders warned the occupation would escalate the conflict throughout the region, calling on Israel to "understand the danger of this crime before it is too late."
The West Bank leader of Arafat's Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, also declared a general strike for Monday in the Palestinian territories to denounce the seizure, and urged Muslims and Arabs throughout the world to join the protest action.
The call was followed later by a similar appeal from the National and Islamic Forces, an umbrella group including Arafat's Fatah movement, calling for a general strike on Monday.
In his letters, Arafat asked world leaders to "intervene rapidly to put an end to the occupation of Orient House and the [other] Palestinian institutions that have been closed," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Saturday.
Erakat's announcement that the letters had been sent came shortly before Israeli police violently repelled about 100 protesters trying to approach the building, which was protected by police barricades.
The police forcefully drove back the protesters, who earlier chanted nationalistic slogans.
"Orient House will remain a [Palestinian] fortress and witness to Israeli terrorism," read a banner carried by the demonstrators.
Palestinian sources said 11 people were arrested in the scuffle - six Americans, three Palestinians, and one each from France and Denmark.
Israeli public radio said 12 people were arrested.
On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon justified the takeover of Orient House, saying Israeli troops found arms and explosives there.
Sharon made the accusations in a telephone call with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell during which he also said the occupation prevented further Palestinian attacks.
Orient House has long been the symbolic cornerstone of Palestinian political presence in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future independent state.
Following Saturday's violent demonstration at Orient House, Palestinian parliament member and Arab League spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, accompanied by an entourage of some 10 people, was also forcefully pushed back by Israeli police after trying to approach the building.
"They use force, we use civilized actions," Ashrawi told reporters after failing in her bid to enter Orient House. "We have the right to go to the Orient House. We have the right to go anywhere we want in Palestine, including Jerusalem."
Ashrawi earlier told a press conference that Israel's actions in taking over Orient House could expand the conflict throughout the region.
"I can not overestimate the danger inherent in the latest Israeli moves... its policies are liable to launch the whole region into a new cycle of conflict and violence," she said.
Israeli authorities criticized Ashrawi for approaching Orient House, accusing her of inciting violence and warning that they were considering measures to ban her from entering Jerusalem, according to Israeli public radio.
Israel seized Orient House and carried out military strikes in the West Bank - bombing a Palestinian police station in Ramallah - after a member of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas blew himself up and killed 15 people in a crowded West Jerusalem pizzeria on Thursday, injuring over 80 others.
In the unrest that followed in the Palestinian territories, two Palestinians died Saturday in the Gaza Strip after being shot by Israeli soldiers in a clash near the Karni checkpoint.
The death toll since the Intifada, or uprising, began 10 months ago now stands at 714, of which 547 are Palestinians and 146 Israelis.
Arafat's Palestinian Authority said shortly after the Orient House occupation that the move signified Israel's renunciation of all peace agreements between the two sides.
The move, condemned by most Arab and Muslim countries, was also criticized by Washington, with U.S. President George W. Bush saying he was "frustrated" to see the situation in the Middle East further deteriorate, adding both parties, and Arafat in particular, "could do better".
Political sources quoted Sharon as saying Israel would hold Orient House until the Palestinian Authority renounced terrorism, but when asked directly how long its occupation would last he reportedly said: "For good."
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