- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel
stood alone on Tuesday over its siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters,
jolted by rare U.S. criticism of its bid to isolate the Palestinian leader
by confining him to a command compound it has largely levelled.
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- Turning the tables on its ally, Washington introduced
a draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council on Monday calling on Israel
to stop destroying Palestinian installations in Ramallah.
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- The unusual move appeared to signal White House impatience
with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as it prepares for possible war
with Iraq and contemplates the damage his actions might cause U.S. efforts
to win Arab support for the campaign.
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- Israeli forces entered Arafat's headquarters complex
in the West Bank city on Thursday and demolished all but his office block
after two suicide bombings killed seven people in Israel in the past week
and shattered a six-week lull in such attacks.
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- The U.S. draft resolution asked Israel "to cease
measures in and around Ramallah, including the destruction of Palestinian
civilian and security infrastructure, that aggravate the situation and
that do not contribute to progress on comprehensive Palestinian civil and
security reforms."
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- It also demanded the complete cessation by all sides
of "all acts of violence, including all acts of terror" and asked
the Palestinian Authority to bring to justice those responsible for "terrorist
acts."
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- Sharon, in broadcast remarks on Monday, signaled that
a military move in the Gaza Strip against the Islamic organization Hamas
might follow the siege. Hamas claimed responsibility for one of last week's
bombings.
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- An Israeli armored force, backed by helicopter gunships
and challenged by Palestinian gunmen, raided two Gaza City suburbs on Tuesday,
killing at least three Palestinians -- two of them non-combatants -- and
wounding more than 20 others, witnesses and hospital officials said.
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- Palestinian security officials said troops blew up several
metal workshops suspected of being makeshift weapons factories.
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- ISRAELI FORCES DEMOLISH MILITANT'S HOME
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- Witnesses said soldiers also dynamited a two-story house
belonging to the family of Mohammad Farhat, an 18-year-old militant who
killed five people in the Jewish settlement of Atzmona in the Gaza Strip
in March before being shot dead.
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- Fahat's mother, Umm Nidal, became an icon to some Palestinians
by appearing in a farewell videotape with her son and giving him her blessing
to carry out the attack and become a "martyr."
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- There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.
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- In the West Bank, Palestinians adopted a new protest
in their two-year-old uprising for an independent state, taking to balconies
and streets in major cities to beat pots and pans in rhythmic rejection
of Israel's siege of Arafat.
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- Joining an international outcry at a time when Arafat
has been hammered by calls from home and abroad for security and anti-corruption
reforms, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Israel's battering of the
Palestinian Authority was a "bankrupt policy" that bolstered
extremists.
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- The White House said President Bush "views what
Israel is doing now as unhelpful to the cause of bringing about reform
in Palestinian institutions."
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- Bush has called for a new Palestinian leadership "not
compromised by terror" as one of the conditions for resuming talks
on statehood.
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- ISRAEL STANDING FIRM ON DEMAND ARAFAT SURRENDER MILITANTS
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- Sticking to his position, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin
Ben-Eliezer issued a statement early on Tuesday saying he would not budge
from a demand that Arafat hand over wanted militants holed up with him
in the battered compound. Arafat has refused.
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- "Israel...has every right to arrest them and bring
them to a just trial," the statement quoted Ben-Eliezer as telling
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb.
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- In Ramallah, Roba Abu Roqti, 26, stood on the veranda
of her home to beat a pot in defiance of Israel.
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- "We have tried all means to liberate our country,
but it didn't work," she said. "Maybe with this noise, the world
will heed our suffering.
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- Briefly opening its security cordon on Monday, the army
allowed chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat into the presidential
complex to brief Arafat on talks he had earlier with Israeli officials.
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- Erekat said Israeli officials had refused to present
him with a list of the suspected militants in the compound and demanded
Arafat draw up a list identifying them.
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- "Arafat rejected the Israeli proposal," Erekat
told Reuters.
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- In the West Bank city of Hebron, a Palestinian gunman
fired at pilgrims at Jewish Sukkoth holiday celebrations in the West Bank
city of Hebron, killing one Israeli man and wounding three youngsters.
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- At least 1,558 Palestinians and 600 Israelis have been
killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000 after peace
talks stalled.
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- (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)
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