JERUSALEM,
July 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat said Thursday efforts must be stepped up to halt
violence plaguing the region. Meanwhile Israel continued its hostile
activities against the Palestinians, capturing a top officer in
Arafat's presidential guards in the West Bank, as army officers warned
that the territory's occupied cities were near boiling point.
"We
have to stop directly what is going on, for our children and for their
children, for the Israelis and for the Palestinians, and for the Arabs
and for the whole Middle East area," Arafat told CNN Television,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Arafat
looked tired but relaxed in his first public appearance in weeks,
during which he struggled to push through security reforms and saw his
base of Ramallah, as well as most other West Bank towns, reoccupied by
Israeli forces.
Israel
accuses Arafat of backing bombings and other resistance activities by
Palestinian groups, while the United States wants the Palestinians to
change their leadership, saying Arafat failed to stem the violence.
For
its part, Israeli special forces captured Colonel Abdelrahim
al-Nubani, the head of Arafat's elite Force 17 guard's security
service, in a pre-dawn raid on a village near Ramallah, Palestinian
officials said, AFP reported.
Thirteen
other men from various Palestinian factions were also nabbed in
overnight aggressions in the northern West Bank.
The
Israeli army said it could keep its occupation in the region for
months, but pressure is mounting on it to relieve the terrible
conditions of the Palestinian population of up to 800,000 people
living under curfew and reoccupation.
Israeli
public television said top army officers pressed the new army chief,
General Moshe Yahalon, Wednesday for a partial withdrawal, saying
three weeks of occupation left towns on the "verge of a volcanic
eruption."
Israeli
daily newspaper Ha’aretz quoted a senior Israeli Defense official as
saying Israel planned to loosen its grip where the security threat was
deemed to drop sufficiently, adding the army's presence was necessary
but not sustainable in the long-term.
Meanwhile,
Israel announced it would try Arafat's West Bank lieutenant Marwan
Barghuti, a jailed deputy of the Palestinian Parliament, in a civil
court for alleged terrorism.
And
the Israeli Justice Ministry said Barghuti, accused by Israel of
heading the Al-Qasa Martyrs Brigades, an ultra-violent offshoot of
Arafat's Fatah group, would face a civil court rather than a military
tribunal.
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Israel says it will try Barghouti
publicly
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Barghuti
was nabbed in Israel's prolonged invasion of Ramallah in April, and
had headed the Jewish state's most wanted list. He has denied the
links to resistance groups.
On
the ground, two Palestinian journalists were injured by Israeli
gunfire in Jenin when tanks rumbled into the northern West Bank town
as residents thought the curfew was lifted. The army said it was
looking into the incident.
The
governor of Bethlehem warned that the reoccupation, triggered by
Palestinian resistance was hurtling his town towards a humanitarian
crisis.
"Thousands
of residents lost their jobs, hundreds of others were arrested, and
about 1,500 are without shelter after the destruction of their
homes," governor Mohammed Madani said.
