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Israel Rejects U.N. Call to Leave West Bank - UN Security Council Israel Rejects UN Call to Leave West Bank
Reuters
November 13, 2001Israel has said its forces would remain in two Palestinian-ruled West Bank areas despite a demand by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council for a pullout.
The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China also called on Palestinians to end more than 13 months of violence in a joint statement issued on Monday at the U.N. General Assembly meeting.
Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said on Tuesday Israeli troops would not leave West Bank areas around Jenin and Tulkarm until Palestinian security forces agreed to restrain militants and prevent violence.
Palestinian cabinet minister Hassan Asfour said the foreign ministers had missed a chance to restart long-stalled Middle East peace talks and said its call for Palestinians to end their revolt against Israeli occupation justified "Israel's terrorist acts against the Palestinian people".
Gissin told Reuters: "There is a plan to withdraw. It has been postponed and delayed because of the current security situation... People get killed, that's why we're there," he said. "Under these conditions we can't withdraw."
Israel reoccupied areas in and around six Palestinian-ruled cities in the West Bank after Palestinian radicals assassinated a far-right cabinet minister on October 17. It has withdrawn from four of the areas.
The United States has been trying to calm the violence in an attempt to bolster Arab and Islamic support for its anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan, launched after the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
"I was hoping that the foreign ministers would...attempt to put an end to the conflict so reiterating the need to end Israel's occupation," Asfour told Reuters.
VIOLENCE FLARES
Despite the U.N. call for an end to violence, Israeli soldiers briefly entered a Palestinian-ruled area of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after troops discovered a bomb, the army said.
A Palestinian security spokesman said the army flattened Palestinian land in the area and then withdrew.
In a separate incident in Gaza, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said Israeli troops shot an 18-year-old Palestinian in the leg.
Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant in a raid on a West Bank village on Monday which Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said would hamper international efforts to ease tensions.
At least 703 Palestinians and 188 Israelis have been killed in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that erupted in September 2000 after peace talks deadlocked.
In a report documenting the first year of the uprising, Amnesty International called for international observers to be dispatched immediately to calm the violence and accused both sides of human rights violations.
"An international observing presence can greatly assist by defusing situations and give both Palestinians and Israelis greater protection," Amnesty said in a statement highlighting the contents of the 98-page report.
"It should be deployed without further delay," it said. Israel has repeatedly rejected calls for international monitors in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip which it fears would serve as a shield for Palestinian militants.
Israel's Foreign Ministry called Amnesty "biased and not objective" but said it would investigate "specific and substantiated claims concerning specific cases."
The Palestinians welcomed Amnesty's findings as "a strong condemnation against the Israeli occupiers" and said they would raise the issue of international observers at the U.N. Security Council, said Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a senior adviser to Arafat.
The Palestinian leadership has frequently called for international monitors to protect civilians from what it calls Israeli military aggression.
Amnesty directed the brunt of its criticism at Israeli methods of combating the uprising, condemning the government for "killing Palestinians and...shelling Palestinian towns".
The report "also condemns the Palestinian armed groups who have shot deliberately at residential areas and cars...and set off bombs targeting civilians in shopping malls and restaurants".
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