arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Israel has decided to postpone troop withdrawal from the southern West Bank city of Hebron as tensions heightened following the deaths of eight Palestinians on Thursday when Israeli forces shelled houses in a refugee camp. A leader of the Hamas vowed to avenge the killings promising a "strong response, not only by Hamas but by all the factions, to banish the Zionist enemy".

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah national movement, also promised a response within 24 hours.

Israeli Army Radio reported yesterday that Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer decided to put off troop withdrawal after senior army officers and the Shin Bet internal security service expressed reservations in consultations Thursday night on a possible pullout.

Ben-Eliezer had said Tuesday that the army would withdraw from Hebron by the weekend "if conditions on the ground allow it".

Ben-Eliezer had reached an agreement with outgoing Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razak Al-Yahya two months ago, whereby Israel would gradually withdraw from reoccupied Palestinian areas.

Israel reoccupied all autonomous West Bank cities with the exception of Jericho four months ago.

Meanwhile, Israeli left-wing opposition chief Yossi Sarid demanded yesterday that Israel "stop its cruel war machine" after the killing by tank fire in the southern Gaza Strip of eight Palestinians.

"It is no longer possible to explain or justify how so many innocent men, women and children" are killed by the army, Sarid said in remarks on Israeli public radio.

"How many times can we say ‘we did not intend to', and who can still believe these excuses?" he added.

"The (Israeli) argument that Palestinians knowingly kill our civilians while Israel does it without premeditation is starting to wear out," he also said.

"When we fire tank shells, not one but three, against homes, the results are predictable," he concluded.

Sarid also drew a parallel between deaths of Israelis in bombing attacks and deaths of Palestinians killed by the Israeli Army. "There are rules concerning self-defense and we respect them, but there are also rules for war. Soon the world will no longer see the difference between one attack and another," he said. Sarid is the head of the left-wing Meretz party, which holds 10 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

Palestinian leader Saeb Erekat, who met Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on Wednesday, said: "Every time there's a move to break the vicious cycle of violence, or a meeting like the one we had on Wednesday night, the Israeli Army responds with massive firepower against Palestinian civilians."

In Rafah, residents began the grisly task of clearing pieces of charred human flesh and cleaning up pools of blood, debris and shattered glass after Thursday's tank shelling.

Some 25,000 Palestinians took part in a funeral march for those killed in the shelling. The Palestinian Authority called the shelling a massacre, but Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Weizman Shiri, while regretting the civilian deaths, said Palestinians must be blamed.

In Paris, spokeswoman for French Foreign Ministry Cecile Pozzo di Borgo called on Israel to halt its military operations against the Palestinians.

"We roundly deplore the incidents yesterday in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli shells on a school and Palestinian houses left at least eight dead, including two children. We call on the Israeli authorities to show better restraint and to halt all military operations in the Palestinian territories," she told a media conference.

In the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, troops shot and killed a Palestinian after he allegedly attacked their outpost with explosives and grenades, the army said. Hamas said the man was one of its members.

In the West Bank yesterday, Israeli troops arrested 11 Palestinians.

Héborn, c'est grosso modo 500 colons, les plus othodoexes et les plus extrême droite possible, pour 120000 ou 130000 palestiniens. Des israéliens qui vivent littéralement dans un secteur fortifié sous la protection constante de 2000 soldats : quand l'armée se retire ça veut dire qu'elle était arrivée en renfort et quand elle se retire ça veut dire qu'il y a toujours 2000 militaires pour garantir la seule sécurité des israéliens
rien à voir avec ce qu'on pourrait appeler un mieux.
Pour les palestiniens d'Hébron, au quotidien, c'est toujours le pire