Palestinians prepared Saturday to bury seven more of their dead in one of the bloodiest rounds of violence in the six-month-old uprising against Israel, amid concerns that the conflict could widen, said reports.
Six Palestinians were killed on Friday in fierce clashes with the Israeli army on the 25th anniversary of Land Day, while a seventh Palestinians died early Saturday from injuries he sustained during an Israeli helicopter raid on Force 17 bases in the West Bank town of Ramallah earlier this week.
Wahid Nasri al-Dik, 54, was wounded Wednesday while posted at the Palestine Technical College, when a neighboring base of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's elite personal guard Force 17 was attacked by Israeli army gunships, said AFP.
In addition to the funerals, in Nablus, Ramallah and Gaza City, occasions that often spark yet more violence, a demonstration is also planned in Gaza City to commemorate Land Day, when Israeli troops killed six Israeli Arabs during a protest over land confiscation in March 1976.
The protests, which also fell on a weekly Palestinian "day of rage" against Israel, come two days after Israeli helicopters pounded bases of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Force 17 elite bodyguard unit, killing two, in response to a string of bombings that left four people dead, two of them suicide bombers.
Israel took further action Friday against the Palestinian leadership, which had to cancel its weekly meeting in Ramallah after Israel barred a number of officials from crossing Israel from the Gaza Strip, said Haaretz.
Sharon issued a statement saying Israel "will continue to strike those who attack us and those who send them."
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said he was convinced that Israel will in the end manage "to crush terrorism."
But the Palestinian Authority denounced Israel's crackdown on the demonstrators as a "barbaric crime that shames humanity."
In a statement, the Palestinians alleged that Sharon was applying a "100-day plan seeking to bring the Palestinian people to their knees by force of arms," according to AFP.
They appealed for international intervention and said the US veto Tuesday of a UN resolution authorizing observers in the territories "encouraged the Sharon government to continue ... its war against our people."
President George W. Bush has called on the two sides to take immediate steps to quell the violence, but has singled out Arafat as not doing enough to promote peace.
"The signal I'm sending to the Palestinians is stop the violence. ... I hope Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear," Bush told a White House press conference Thursday.
"Our goal is to encourage a series of reciprocal and parallel steps by both sides that will halt the escalation of violence, provide safety and security for civilians on both sides, and restore normalcy to the lives of everyone in the region," he said.
Bush also said that in meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak next week and Jordan's King Abdullah II the week after he would "seek their help in defusing the tensions."
He said he hoped the two Arab leaders would try to persuade Arafat to speak out against violence and strongly suggested Arafat would not be invited to the White House until he acts.
Meanwhile, at the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, some 6,000 people demonstrated and pledged to "strike at the interests of the United States," Israel's main political and military ally.
Hoping to present Israel's case to the world, it was announced that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will travel Monday to Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, for two days of talks, before visiting other European countries, said Haaretz.
The EU issued a statement Friday in Stockholm calling on "both parties to act with maximum restraint, restore calm and do their utmost to prevent actions resulting in new victims."
Clashes also took place Friday in the Gaza Strip, where 16 young Palestinians were injured.
Israeli tanks also lobbed shells for the third straight day against an Arab neighborhood in the West Bank town of Hebron, which has been tense since Monday when a sniper shot dead a 10-month-old Jewish girl.
Shalevet Pass's family agreed to bury the girl on Sunday after initially refusing to hold a funeral until the Israeli army occupies an Arab district overlooking Hebron's Jewish quarter, said the Israeli paper.
Also Friday, stones were thrown at Jews near the Wailing Wall in east Jerusalem following weekly prayers at the adjacent al-Aqsa mosque compound. No one was reported injured - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
