A Palestinian boy 11 years old was shot and killed when Israeli occupation troops fired upon a funeral procession in Gaza yesterday, thirteen other Palestinians were injured. Israeli tanks opened fire on Palestinian homes and businesses in and around Biet Jala, Aida and Arroup refugee camps. The Israeli occupation forces also attempted to storm Rafah refugee camp to destroy more Palestinian homes, Palestinian resistance rebuffed them.
Israel continues its illegal digging underneath the Aqsa Mosque. Recently, Israel asked UNISCO to postpone a visit by one of its representatives from visiting Jerusalem to investigate the ongoing excavations done by Israel since 1967. Israel's excavations underneath the Aqsa Mosque are endangering the structure of the Aqsa Mosque.
President Arafat reiterated his commitment to signed agreements with Israel and asks the EU to increase its efforts to save the peace process. President Carter calls on the new Bush administration to renew credibility for the United States in the region.
Ex-President of the United States Bill Clinton believes that President Arafat Wants to achieve peace with Israel.
Israel is reported to have softened its opposition to the Jordanian- Egyptian initiative to resume peace talks with the Palestinian people. Palestinian observers are suspicious of Sharon's intentions particularly in light of his repeated positions with regard to withdrawing from occupied Palestinian territories, stopping Jewish settlements and arriving at a final status agreement with the Palestinian people. Peres is reported to be behind the apparent cosmetic change in Sharon's position.
Members of the Israeli cabinet from the Likud differ in their positions with regard to President Arafat. The most extreme of those is Israeli minister of police Uzi Landau. Others are silent particularly with regard to Sharon's zigzaging policies. Landau is taking an extreme stance, it appears, because he is competing with Netanyahu on the leadership of the Likud. Both Netanyahu and Landau have been attacking President Arafat recently.
In the Israeli public eye, there is no one more extreme than Sharon, he was elected on a security for Israeli ticket, some thing that appears to be not within Sharon's grasp. Hence, the ground is being prepared in the Israeli right wing camp to choose some one who is more extreme to satisfy Jewish extremists lust for more killing and destruction for the Palestinian people. Landau is demanding and pushing to do just land. Netanyahu is staring to appear one again on the scene.
To observers both Israelis and Palestinians, this is a sign reflecting the apparent failure of Sharon thus far in the eyes of the right in Israel.
Eight Israelis were reported lightly injured due to a car explosion near Tel- Aviv. In a drive by shooting near Tel Aviv, an Israeli was shot dead, investigators say the drive by shooting was a result of Mafia like conflict in the area.
Palestinian Minister of Information and Culture says: A Palestinian delegation is expected to visit Washington soon.
As Israeli occupation soldiers increase their attacks on Palestinian journalists,- latest victims of which - was Laila Odeh a senior correspondent for Abu Dhabi Satellite TV station who was shot in the leg by an Israeli live bullet while covering the destruction of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers and tanks near Rafah last Friday.
Palestinian journalists began a protest campaign designed to pressure the Israeli government to take measures against those who harass and attack Palestinian journalists and to expose Israel's so called freedom granted to the press.
A fifteen-minute meeting was held yesterday between Palestinian and Israeli security personnel near Gaza yesterday. Another meeting lasting for three hours was held at the premises of the American embassy in Tel- Aviv last night.
Washington warns its citizens from travelling to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories including Arab east Jerusalem.
Usama El- Baz, special advisor to President Mubarak says: Egypt does not fear Israel. El- Baz added that Israel can not attack Egypt, because such an action would mean the last nail in Israel's coffin.
The Israeli Prime minister said to have signed a document allowing building a train track linking Gaza and the West Bank to be used as a safe passage between the two areas.
There are numerous indications that a real change is taking place in the Israeli society, a change indicative of Israel's awakening to the fact that there is no military solution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict and that only a political solution will do. The ruthless and relentless attacks by Barak's and Sharon's military machine on the Palestinian population in the occupied Palestinian territories and their attempts to place a wedge between the Palestinian population and its leadership did not and will not work. An increasing number of Israeli intellectuals are returning back to the logical thinking, particularly as the time they have given to Sharon and the governing right in Israel did not bring any tangible results, in addition to their realization that Sharon's destructive policies as designated by his spokesman Ranan Gissin- raw after raw of Palestinian homes razed to the ground - did not work.
The strategic danger Barak and Sharon inflicted on the future of Israel far exceeds any attempts to quell by sheer brute force Palestinian longing for independence and freedom.
Other indications that appear to have influenced a change in the Israeli society, particularly the intellectual part of it is the awakening by international writers to the fact, which we the Palestinian people have been advocating for long time. Peace and occupation can not go together. The Palestinian people can not be lured by mere promises of more work, or easing of sanctions or other cosmetic improvements on the occupation.
William Pfaf in an article in the Los Angeles Times published recently said " The Israeli public does not yet fully understand the most important consideration of all: that the Palestinians are, in a terrible way, winning. Palestinian suffering is robbing Israel of its moral substance. The more Israel behaves as an oppressor, the less it is worth living in. By occupying Palestinian territory to which Israel has no title in international Law, annexing its fertile land, diverting its water, employing measures of repression that would be unacceptable in any Western democracy- collective and exemplary punishment, destruction of civilian property to intimidate resistance, arrests without charge and imprisonment without trial- Israel turns itself into the kind of state it was founded to repudiate."
Yossi Beilin, who was justice minister in Barak's government wrote last week that" " without the hope for peace, without the endeavors for peace, it will be impossible to maintain a viable Jewish state for long."