On Saturday, the Palestinian Authority filed a formal complaint with the United States, after Israeli army soldiers took over a dairy factory in Dir-el-Balah, located in the Gaza Strip earlier in the day.
The occupation army explained that soldiers had taken over the third floor of the factory because shooting at the Kfar Darom settlement had been originating from that building.
For their part, the Palestinians claim that the factory provides all of the milk necessary for the Gaza Strip. However, Israel told the United States that the factory only supplied milk for Palestinian security forces.
The building was evicted of its Palestinian occupants, despite U.S. intervention.
In a separate development, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at the Palestinian naval police headquarters in the Gaza Strip early Saturday. No casualties were reported in this attack, which took place in Dir al-Balach.
Israeli Army Radio reported that the attack came in response to Friday’s mortar fire on an occupation outpost. Two mortars were fired and no injuries were reported.
Sharon Meetings
Sources in the Palestinian Authority said Saturday that the meeting between senior PA officials and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem last Wednesday was held at the request of the Israeli side.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, speaking Saturday to reporters, confirmed that the meeting had taken place and said that there would be other meetings of this nature in the future.
"I instructed the Palestinian officials to continue with these meetings," said the PA chairman, adding that the talks touched on diplomatic and security matters.
Sharon met with three of Arafat's top aides, Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala); his deputy, Abu Mazen and his economic advisor, Mohammad Rasheed, in his first meeting with top PA officials since taking office more than a year ago.
According to Haaretz, the prime minister said Saturday evening that he would give a full briefing on the talks during the government meeting Sunday.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian security officials also met for talks in Jerusalem on Friday, renewing contacts interrupted last month by a wave of suicide attacks by Palestinian militants, said U.S. and Israeli officials in New York.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell this weekend praised Wednesday night's meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and three senior Palestinian Authority officials, saying that it indicated progress.
"I'm very pleased that they've met. Dialogue is an important thing," conveyed Powell.
"Between that and, hopefully, the security meeting we held today, we might be having some progress once again," he said.
Powell offered no further details about Friday's security session but an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it took place in Jerusalem "at the highest levels between Israeli and Palestinian security officials."
Arafat Health
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, 72, should be undergoing routine medical checks which are impossible as long as Israel continues to confine him to Ramallah in the West Bank, his personal doctor told AFP.
"President Arafat undergoes tests every three months and it is now time for him to have them," said Ashraf al-Kurdi, a personal friend of the Palestinian leader and his official doctor since the 1980s. "Arafat must have routine examinations, and that is not possible so long as he is 'in prison'," said Kurdi, a prominent neurologist and former Jordanian minister of health.
"I suggested going to see him in Ramallah but he (Arafat) replied: 'No, I'm fine.' I call him regularly once or twice a week," he added, while judging the Israeli behaviour towards his patient to be "unacceptable." Arafat's last routine check-up took place in Amman on November 10, 2001. Arafat had a brain surgery in June 1992. Doctors removed a blood clot which had formed following a plane accident in which he was involved in Libya.(Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
