-Caveat Lector-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62617-2002Sep24?language=printer
Israel Defies Calls to End Siege of Arafat
Office Still Surrounded Despite U.N. Resolution; 9 Palestinians Killed
in Gaza Raid
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, September 25, 2002; Page A20
JERUSALEM, Sept. 24 -- Israeli troops kept up their siege of Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat's Ramallah office building today, defying calls
from the U.N. Security Council, the United States and Europe for a
withdrawal. Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip did pull back, but only
after staging a quick raid early this morning that killed nine
Palestinians.
Israeli officials said they would not end the Ramallah siege until
the Palestinians complied with the part of a U.N. resolution passed
early today that calls on the Palestinian Authority to "bring to
justice" people responsible for terrorist attacks against Israelis.
"The resolution calls on both parties to take certain steps," said
Dore Gold, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Another
Israeli official, who asked not to be identified, was more blunt: "As
long as they are not complying, why should we comply?"
The resolution passed the Security Council, after an extended
debate, by a vote of 14 to 0, with the United States abstaining. The
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, explained the
abstention by saying the resolution did not specifically condemn the
radical groups Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Resistance Movement, also
known as Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which have carried out
suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks against Israelis.
Palestinians said they were heartened by the resolution, and by the
unusual U.S. decision not to exercise its Security Council veto power to
block language condemning Israel.
Arafat, in a statement issued from his besieged office building,
said, "The Palestinian Authority is committed to the [Security Council]
decision with all its items, and it calls on the international community
to compel Israel to implement the withdrawal and end the siege."
Hani al-Hassan, an Arafat aide who is in the building in Ramallah,
called the U.S. abstention "a good indication."
"The problem now is how to implement the statement," he said.
In Rome, a Vatican statement said that Pope John Paul II was worried
about Israel's "grave attack" in Ramallah and that Sharon should
"suspend such actions that compromise the already faint hopes of peace
in the region." Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for
external affairs, said: "I can't imagine how anybody can think what is
happening in Ramallah today can make peace more likely."
The United States wants the Israeli government to abide by the
Security Council resolution, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
said.
Hassan said Israel's response to the resolution early today was to
resume some bulldozing on the grounds of Arafat's compound, creating
plumes of sand and dust that left a layer of dirt in the Palestinian
leader's office, which now has no working air conditioners.
An Israeli military spokesman later said the bulldozing work had
stopped and described this as a gesture of restraint. He also said that
the curfew imposed by Israel in occupied West Bank towns was not being
enforced in most places.
The nine fatalities in the Gaza raid included a 14-year-old boy.
More than 20 people were injured in the attacks, which the Israeli
military said targeted 13 weapons factories. Funerals were held today
for the nine, who Palestinians said were made up of six civilians and
three gunmen who fired on the advancing Israeli troops.
In the Gaza raids, the Israeli troops also demolished the home of a
member of Hamas who Israel said was responsible for a shooting rampage
at an Israeli settlement that killed five teenagers.
Israel has conducted near-nightly incursions into the Gaza Strip,
but this morning's raid, with troops backed by helicopters and dozens of
tanks, was by far the most intense, extending more than a half-mile into
Gaza City and meeting more resistance than any previous foray.
The Palestinian death toll was the highest in Gaza since July 22,
when an Israeli jet dropped a bomb on the home of Salah Shehada, the
leader of Hamas's underground military wing. The blast killed Shehada, a
deputy and 14 others, including nine children asleep in the house.
Military analysts said that raid, which Sharon called a military
success but which brought Israel wide international condemnation, made
Israeli troops more cautious about mounting operations in Gaza, where
Hamas is based. The organization originated in the densely populated
strip of refugee camps and urban neighborhoods.
Israeli officials and commentators said concern over civilian
casualties is the reason why Israeli troops have not tried to apprehend
the Hamas leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. His group has claimed
responsibility for suicide bombings in Israel, including a bus attack in
Tel Aviv last Thursday.
"You don't simply take out Sheik Yassin -- you have his wives, his
children, his grandchildren," said Israeli journalist Yossi Klein
Halevi. "Going into Gaza means heavy civilian casualties, and that's not
something Israel needs right now."
But after this morning's raid, many analysts here said a full-scale
operation in Gaza, targeting the Hamas leadership, could be looming.
"The day will come, as soon as we get the necessary troops together,
that we will have to do this, to strike against Hamas and prevent its
ability to act," Sharon said in a speech.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
=================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/25/international/middleeast/25RESO.html?pagew
anted=print&position=top
September 25, 2002
Israel Resists New U.N. Measure to End Siege
By JULIA PRESTON
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24 - The United Nations Security Council adopted a
resolution before dawn today demanding that Israel lift the five-day
siege of Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah, but Israel took no action,
saying it had "difficulty in accepting" elements in the measure.
Israel's defiance, despite worldwide criticism of its confinement of
Mr. Arafat, the Palestinian leader, created new troubles for the Bush
administration as it tried to mobilize support here this week for a
Council resolution to enforce past resolutions on Iraq.
Israeli officials said they would not comply with the resolution
until the Palestinians took action.
"Since the Palestinian Authority definitely not only is not
arresting terrorists but actually aiding and abetting them," said Raanan
Gissin, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "then it is
highly unlikely that we could unilaterally fulfill our part of the
resolution."
President Bush reiterated that the Israeli operation in Ramallah was
"not helpful" for United States efforts to promote Palestinian reform.
"As we fight terror, particularly in the Middle East, they've got to
build the institutions necessary for a Palestinian state," he said after
a cabinet meeting in Washington today.
But the United States abstained from voting on the resolution, which
contained an unusually strong rebuke of Israel. It passed in the early
morning by a vote of 14 in favor and none against, after a long day of
debate and a long night of negotiations aimed at averting an American
veto.
The abstention demonstrated that Washington was sticking to its
position of not supporting any measure on Israel that does not name
names of Palestinian groups it calls terrorist, or that requires Israeli
withdrawal from Palestinian areas it has occupied since 2000 while
attacks inside Israel continue. That position, forcefully advocated by
the American envoy to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, has become
known as the Negroponte Doctrine.
Washington abstained to make a point to wary Arab nations, which
were looking to see if the United States would curry their support on
Iraq by softening its backing of Mr. Sharon's military assault on Mr.
Arafat.
Written by European countries forging a compromise between drafts by
Syria and the United States, the measure demands that Israel immediately
end the occupation of Mr. Arafat's compound and "cease measures in and
around Ramallah including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and
security infrastructure."
It also demands that the Palestinian Authority prosecute terrorists.
In an effort at balance, it mentions two recent suicide bombings in
Israel as well as the bombing at a Palestinian school in Hebron on Sept.
17.
Palestinian and Arab leaders hailed the resolution, pleased that the
United States had let it go through. Marwan Muasher, the foreign
minister of Jordan, said in Washington today that the United States sent
"a clear message that it also is not happy with the way Israel has been
conducting its affairs."
In casting its abstention, the United States described the
resolution as flawed because it did not include the names of the groups
that claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings - Islamic Jihad
for the attack on a bus at Umm al Fahm on Sept. 18, and Hamas for
bombing a bus in Tel Aviv on Sept. 19.
Diplomats from Syria, the Council member that called for the
emergency session Monday, rejected any mention of Hamas as a terrorist
organization. The group has a headquarters in Damascus.
The United States wanted the Council to "assume its responsibilities
and take a clear stand against the actions of these terrorist groups and
to call for action against them," said Ambassador James Cunningham, the
United States deputy here.
Copyright The New York Times Company
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