World

Two Die In Mideast Violence

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 16, 2000 / 10:21 AM EDT / CBS

Demonstrations in the Palestinian territories against a Middle East peace summit turned ugly Monday, reports CBS News Correspondent David Hawkins.

Two Palestinians—a 15-year-old boy and a Palestinian policeman— were killed by Israeli gunfire. Stone throwers and masked gunmen again attacked Israeli positions in the deadliest violence in four days.

The boy, Muayed Darwish, was shot in the head during a firefight near an Israeli enclave in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Darwish was in a coma for several hours, hooked up to a respirator, before being declared dead.

In the Gaza Strip, the policeman was killed after Israelis opened fire on Palestinians trying to cut holes in the border fence with Egypt. Thirty-eight demonstrators were injured in the clashes there. In the West Bank town of Nablus, 19 Palestinians were wounded, including two who were in serious condition.

Monday's deaths brought to 102 the number of people killed in 19 days of fighting, most of them Palestinians. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been injured.

In addition, the Lebanese Islamic fundamentalist group Hezbollah announced over the weekend that it had kidnapped an Israeli Army officer. A week ago, three Israeli soldiers were captured on the Lebanese border.

On Hezbollah TV, the leader of the Iranian-backed group described the reserve Army colonel as an agent of the Israeli spy agency Mossad who was caught in Beirut with a false passport.

But Israeli officials say 53-year-old Elhanan Tennenbaum is a private citizen and that he was kidnapped in Europe more than a week ago.

"Mr. Tennenbaum is definitely not an Israeli spy. He is a businessman," said Israeli military analyst Ron Ben Yishai. "The Mossad in the (last) five years has a new policy of announcing out loud when an agent is caught."

The violence cast a pall over American efforts to broker a truce between Israel and the Palestinians at the emergency summit in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt.

Many Palestinians didn't want Chairman Yasser Arafat to go to the summit in the first place.

In marches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, thousands of Palestinians expressed their opposition to a cease-fire with Israel. "Yes to the intafada (uprising), no to the summit," proclaimed a banner signed by Arafat's Fatah faction and raised in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

In Ramallah, a group of masked militiamen joined a funeral procession for a Palestinian who died from injuries sustained last week.

The group marched in the front line with assault rifles. One youth even hoisted a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. As the funeral ended, the men headed toward an Israeli checkpoint and opened fire on Israeli troops.

Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, said the purpose of the summit "is to liquidate the Palestinian intifada and to force the Palestinians to surrender to Israeli and American demands."
CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth reports the high profile of Hezbollah in the Israeli-Palestinian clashes and Hamas in the street protests signals a growing militancy among frustrated Palestinians.

Militants in the Palestinian movement are making Jerusalem into a battle cry.

Marwan Barghouti, a head of Fatah, calls the recent clashes, "the intifada of Jerusalem. The intifada of independence."

"Jerusalem has to be the capital of Palestine and…we are ready to sacrifice ourselves as Palestinians for Jerusalem," he said.

Fearing increased activity by the militant groups, Israel has demanded that the Palestinian Authority re-arrest scores of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists released last Thursday, when Israel rocketed Palestinian command centers.

In the West Bank, 14 of 35 Islamic militants have been taken back to jail.

Meanwhile, the closure of the Palestinian territories' borders and the presence of Israeli military checkpoints fanned Palestinian resentment. Israel sealed the West Bank and Gaza on Sept. 29, keeping 120,000 Palestinians from jobs in Israel.

Reuters

Palestinian demonstrators in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon set ablaze U.S and Israeli flags during a protest against the Sharm El-Sheikh summit.

Last Thursday, Israel also laid siege to Palestinian towns in the West Bank. In Hebron, some 30,000 Palestinian have been under an around-the-clock curfew for the past two weeks. The restrictions have disrupted life, barring Palestinians from jobs and schools and freezing trade.

Some food shortages have been reported in Gaza, though no one was going hungry. World Bank officials said the closure will damage tourism and jeopardize the income of 700,000 people, who depend on wage-earners paid by Israel.

Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey said the closure was necessary to guard against terror attacks by Islamic militants.

An Amnesty International mission found that Israeli forces used excessive force in controlling riots across Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a member said Monday.

"There may have been one or two points where Israeli soldiers had the right to return fire because they were fired on," said Elizabeth Hodgkin, "But really there was practically no occasion that we visited that could not have been solved by other policing methods…without the loss of life."

Palestinians aren't the only ones opposed to the summit. Many Israelis are also pessimistic about the prospects for peace.

"I don't think it has a chance in a million," sai one man.

"I think Israel has given as much as they're going to give," said a woman.

After two Israeli reserve soldiers were killed by a frenzied Palestinian mob in Ramallah Thursday, many Israelis wondered whether Barak should even be talking to Arafat anymore.

The Israeli Maariv daily on Monday ran photographs of more than a dozen Palestinians present during the lynching — taken from video footage — and said many had gone into hiding. Israeli cabinet ministers have vowed to track down the killers of the two soldiers, regardless of how much time it would take.