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Annan Calls For Calm As Israel Attacks West Bank, Gaza
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 (IslamOnline &
News Agencies) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday again urged Israelis and Palestinians to halt the "vicious cycle of violence and retaliation" and to implement the recommendations of the Mitchell report.
"The secretary general is increasingly concerned about the ongoing vicious cycle of violence and retaliation in the Middle East," Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard said. "He continues to believe that there can be no alternative to a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Annan also called on both sides "to avoid any action that could make the search for a way out of the present crisis more difficult," Eckhard said.
Eckhard's comments came amid a second day of massive Israeli airstrikes against Palestinian targets in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. At least two Palestinians were killed and at least 120 others were injured in the attacks, carried out by U.S.-made helicopter gunships and F-16 aircraft.
Israeli armored vehicles also rolled into Palestinian-ruled areas in the West Bank near Nablus and Ramallah, not far from an office where Arafat was working. Israeli tanks and bulldozers ploughed up the runaway at Gaza International Airport at Rafah near the Egyptian border.
The latest punishing Israeli military actions follow a national address Monday by hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who blamed recent bombing attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
Arafat condemned the attacks, which killed 25 Israelis and wounded dozens more. He ordered a crackdown against members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the weekend attacks.
Arafat also accused Sharon of trying to torpedo his efforts to jail Palestinian activists and ultimately to wreck a peace process already ailing after 14 months of bitter bloodletting which has left 1,049 people dead, mainly Palestinians.
"He doesn't want me to succeed, and for this he is escalating his military activities against our towns, our cities, our establishments," Arafat told CNN.
The Palestinian Authority leader was scornful of the lack of international condemnation of the two days of Israeli air raids.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Arafat and many of his ministers were stranded after the raids, and after Israeli forces closed all roads out of the areas of Palestinian rule.
"As far as Sharon is concerned, [Arafat's] not supposed to conduct anything, he's not supposed to do anything," Erekat said. "I really believe Sharon is making every effort to say Arafat is no longer a partner, Arafat should not exist, Arafat should no longer live."
Israeli officials dismissed the Palestinian Authority response as too little and too late. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met Tuesday in Bucharest, Romania with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. He once again has called on Arafat to make a greater effort at curbing attacks against Israel.
"Chairman Arafat can do more," Powell said. "I don't think we've seen 100 percent effort ... I think he needs to do a lot more than we've seen so far."
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad, vowed to avenge Tuesday's Israeli air raids in Gaza and West Bank.
In a statement faxed to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Islamic Jihad vowed that its response would be "as strong" as the Israeli attacks.
"Our answer is coming and it will be as strong as their attack and their crime," said the Islamic Jihad statement. "We will not surrender in this ugly war which has been started by the Zionist state against our people and we will continue to resist whatever the price. We have announced several times it is our duty to defend the blood of our Palestinian people and our religious places."
Islamic Jihad has also been behind a number of bloody attacks in the 14-month-old Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, against Israeli occupation, including several bombings.
Palestinian officials said the only effective way to end the violence was to end Israel's 34-year occupation of Palestinian land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel granted partial self-rule with the 1993 Oslo Accords setting up the Palestinian Authority, but its forces still control vast swathes of the West Bank and protect scores of Jewish settlements on occupied land.
The Palestinians have denounced Sharon's insistence on seven days of total calm before any talks or implementation of agreed peace plan can start.
But even that time frame was withdrawn Tuesday, said Israel's ambassador to Washington, David Ivri.
"This demand is not on the table anymore. It's not in the agenda," Ivri told reporters in Washington. "The only question is now: Will Arafat stop the terror or not. The more he's going to implement, the more we will give him a chance. This is Arafat's "last chance to say yes or no."
The current crisis has may have also endangered Sharon's national unity coalition. Peres said he had called a meeting of his Labor party to discuss their position.
"I know there are many members of my party who think that the time has come to leave the government, but what is the majority I can hardly say," Peres said.
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