Posted on 07/28/2002 9:56:08 AM PDT by RCW2001
NASSER SHIYOUKHI, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, July 28, 2002
©2002 Associated Press
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/07/28/international1126EDT0520.DTL
(07-28) 09:43 PDT HEBRON, West Bank (AP) --
Jewish settlers and Palestinians clashed Sunday during a funeral procession for a slain Israeli soldier, leaving a 14-year-old Palestinian girl dead and several Palestinians wounded, witnesses said.
Separately Sunday, the Palestinian finance minister and the No. 2 at the Israeli finance ministry met and finalized details for Israel to transfer an initial $15 million in withheld tax revenues to the Palestinians by Monday, both sides said.
The money is part of an estimated $600 million Israel has withheld over the past 22 months of fighting. Israel has agreed to release some, provided it isn't used to fund attacks, to help ease the Palestinians' precarious economic situation.
Sunday's trouble in Hebron erupted as the settlers were carrying the body of the soldier from the biblical Tomb of the Patriarchs, through the narrow streets of Hebron, to the cemetery. The Palestinians, though confined to their homes by an army-imposed curfew, began throwing stones at the funeral procession, according to photographers at the scene.
The armed settlers responded immediately, firing shots at Palestinian homes and using metal bars and stones smash windows of cars and homes in Hebron's Old City, residents said.
Palestinian Nizin Jamjoum, 14, was standing on the balcony of her home when she was fatally shot in the head, said her brother Marwan, 26, who was injured. At least six Palestinians were hurt, doctors at the city's Alia Hospital said.
The injured included Ahmed Natcha, age 8, who was stabbed when a group of settlers broke into his home and smashed furniture, said the boy's father, Hussain Natcha. The boy was in stable condition, the father said.
The Israeli military said it was aware of only one injured Palestinian, and that he had received treatment from the troops. The army said it was attempting to calm tensions in Hebron, where several hundred Jewish settlers live among more than 100,000 Palestinians.
However, several Palestinian witnesses said that soldiers did little or nothing to stop the attacks by the settlers, which lasted for about an hour.
Palestinian Dr. Tayser Zahadeh, who lives near the scene of the confrontation, said that "before the funeral, the soldiers told us to stay in our homes and stay away from the windows, because they knew there was going to be trouble."
Shortly after the funeral ceremony began, Dr. Zahadeh said he heard several gunshots and peered out the window, where he saw settlers using metal bars and stones to smash the windows of Palestinian homes.
"The soldiers weren't doing anything to stop them," Dr. Zahadeh said. "After one hour of vandalism, the police intervened. They were the ones who stopped the violence."
Israeli media reported that 15 police officers were injured in scuffles with settlers, who also took police equipment.
The army-imposed curfew in Hebron was supposed to be lifted during the day Sunday, and food stalls in the main market opened in the morning.
However, the security forces, apparently fearing clashes, reimposed the curfew after about two hours by throwing stun grenades and firing tear gas to disperse Palestinians in the market.
That drove Palestinians home before the funeral for the Israeli soldier, Elazar Leibovitz, a resident of Hebron. Leibovitz was shot dead in a roadside ambush Friday.
A second car was also riddled with bullets Friday, killing a Jewish couple, Yossi and Hana Dickstein, and one their 10 children. With the nine orphaned children, ages 2 to 20, in attendance, the three were buried Sunday in the West Bank settlement of Psagot.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for Friday's attack.
In other developments Sunday, thousands of Palestinians defied the army's 39-day curfew in the West Bank town of Nablus, filling markets and opening some offices and banks as Israeli soldiers stood by, residents said.
The Nablus city governor, Mahmoud Alol, and the Fatah movement called for the curfew protest, which began at 9 a.m. and continued throughout the day. Some Western activists also took part, removing roadblocks from the city, allowing cars laden with vegetables and chickens to get out to markets in nearby villages.
"So many of our people are suffering from hunger and others couldn't get medicine so we have to get our rights by ourselves," Alol said.
The round-the-clock curfew in Nablus has only been lifted five times, for a few hours at a stretch, since Israeli troops reoccupied the city more than five weeks ago.
Israel sent its troops back into Palestinian cities in the West Bank in an attempt to prevent Palestinian attacks inside Israel. The number of attacks have fallen sharply, but have not stopped.
In other developments Sunday, Israeli soldiers arrested three suspected militants in the village of Burkin, southwest of Jenin. Among those detained was Mohammed Abu Tabikh, 22, a member of the radical Islamic Jihad, group members said.
Also in Burkin, Israeli forces ordered the family of the late Majid Tayeb, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, to leave their home. Soldiers then fired tank shells at the two-story building and destroyed it, Palestinians said. The army said it was checking the report.
Tayeb was killed a year ago when a stolen car he purchased blew up with him inside. Palestinians say Israel was responsible for Tayeb's death.
Also, two cars outside the home of Mohammed Afaneh in Burkin were blown up by Israeli troops, residents said. Afaneh, a member of the militant Hamas movement, was arrested 20 days ago by Israel. The army did not immediately comment.
©2002 Associated Press
Welcome to FreeRepublic. (member since 7/28/02)
We appreciate honesty here, so maybe you'll get rid of that Union Jack on your profile. (I'm just guessing that English isn't your Mother Tongue.)
ML/NJ
No, if a Jew shows his face in the street when the army is not there he is just gutted and stomped. All of these areas are completely Judenrien, or Jew free. However the Arabs who live in Jewish areas are completely free. It is not called Aparthied, but that is what it is. Moslem Aparthied.
Who got killed and injured here? That's right, Pali children.
Uh, did you forget (how could you not it has been over a day or so...) the intentional mass murder of civilians by the bombsie twins? Who got killed there? That's right, Jewish children. Tell me, what military target was at the coffee shop? When the Islamics lined up to claim the wreckage, where were you to condem them? Heard any apologies from the Islamic sect for slaughtering a dozen or so men, women and children this week, or the week before, or the week before that or the week...
Oh, I guess I am not on the right thread! This is a riot started by Palestinians who attacked a funeral procession by dropping rocks on the people from the balconys of the apartment buildings lining the narrow streets! This is not the bombsie twins, or the coffee house slaughter, or the machine gun squat by the freeway thread, this is the Jews got ambushed and in the gunfight and run for cover someone got hurt, OH MY GOSH, IT WAS A PALESTINIAN THIS TIME THREAD! I guess I should cry big tears because this time the 14 year old was not wearing a bomb belt but was bombing the moms and dads with bricks. Oh big waaaahhhh!
Give it a break. I do not, and never will condone murder as a valid form of political expression
A lot of the Arabs still hold deeds: from Jordan, even from the British...of course they are no longer worth the paper they are printed on since the Israelis consider them all squatters.
I hate to impinge on your shakey reality, but Israel honors deeds. There are houses in down town everwhere that are abandoned since 1948 and still stand, like haunted houses in a thriving city. This even in the capitol city Jerusalem where a decent sized plot of land is worth a half a million dollars.
Tell me, since the Arabs are building new settlements at twice the rate as the Jews inside Israel, where oh where do they get the deeds? (Deed, what deed, I don got to sho you no stinkin deed!)
Didn't think so.
Didn't think at all looks like it. In fact you have no idea what is going on over here, and that is precicely why I write. You are being fed a pack of lies and are able to discard half of them as garbage and eat the other half. I got a clue for you, Islamics tend to lie, all the time. It is a religion for them.
And if you think someone being killed in a fight when Palestinians attack a Jewish funeral is the Jews fault, you are hopeless. I bet you would cut your sisters throat if she got raped. Sounds harsh but it is a normal thing to do in Arabic Islam. Blame the victim, and play self-rightious, but don't expect to fool anybody but other fools.
All I'm doing here is speaking up for the Palestinians.They have their greviances too you know.It's all very well siding with Israel but you forget the Palestinian children who are starving and have no medical aid.If you could see for yourself the conditions out there then I wonder if you would still support the Israelis?
Well, maybe the schools over there have deteriorated badly.
As for the "grievances" of the "Palestinians," we all have things we don't like. It doesn't give us the right to go blowing up pizza parlors. I wonder if you can understand that. I wonder if you can understand that once your beloved "Palestinians" started blowing up pizza parlors I stopped caring whether they have food, medicine, or whether they live at all; the same way you Limeys felt about the Krauts if you catch my drift.
What you are doing is speaking up for the Muslims. There are no Palestinians any more than there are Saharans.
ML/NJ
Didn't think at all looks like it. In fact you have no idea what is going on over here, and that is precicely why I write. You are being fed a pack of lies and are able to discard half of them as garbage and eat the other half. I got a clue for you, Islamics tend to lie, all the time. It is a religion for them.
And if you think someone being killed in a fight when Palestinians attack a Jewish funeral is the Jews fault, you are hopeless. I bet you would cut your sisters throat if she got raped. Sounds harsh but it is a normal thing to do in Arabic Islam. Blame the victim, and play self-rightious, but don't expect to fool anybody but other fools.
WOW !
BRAVO !
What a great post!
ML/NJ
If they are suffering it's because their leaders have done nothing to alleviate them, taking all the aid money that is supposed to go towards easing this suffering, to buy themselves personal luxuries. Then these starving creatures are then fed a diet of propaganda that THE JEWS are to blame for their condition instead of their evil leaders.
I support the Palestinian people because they are suffering.They need to be understood and not made scapegoats of.Israel should be ashamed of itself.
The teachers over here think they're doing a great job too. (Maybe you'll let the folks in the peanut gallery know what the object of the word of, highlighted above, is.)
The Israelis are suffering too. The Germans suffered. Suffering does not give anyone a claim to some moral high ground.
ML/NJ
Would you believe the Jerusalem Post?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1027506372169
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