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Newsletter : 1fax0219.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN Feb. 19, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 30
Black Activist Muhammad Dies
By VOA News
Controversial former Black Muslim activist Khalid Abdul Muhammad died Saturday in Georgia at age 53. Muhammad served as chairman of the radical New Black Panther party, after having been suspended from the Nation of Islam group for anti-white and anti-Semitic comments. Earlier reports said he had been admitted to a hospital in Cobb County, Ga., after suffering from a brain hemorrhage.
Palestinians Ask Saddam to Hit Israel with Missiles
By VOA News
Palestinians at a mass rally in the Gaza Strip Sunday called on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to strike Tel Aviv with missiles. The demonstration was held as Israel halted oil and gasoline deliveries to Gaza.
The crowd fired automatic weapons into the air and chanted that the Iraqi leader will free the Palestinian people. The demonstrators Sunday also condemned Friday's U.S. and British air strikes near Baghdad.
Saddam Hussein is promising to avenge the air strikes and some Israelis fear he might hit the Jewish state. Prime Minister Ehud Barak is telling nervous Israelis not to worry. Israel and the United States open joint military exercises today that include tests of Patriot missiles designed to shoot down incoming offensive missiles.
Israel cut off oil and gas supplies to Gaza in retaliation for last week's killing of eight Israelis at a bus stop south of Tel Aviv. Twenty-one people were injured when the Palestinian driver plowed his bus into the crowd and tried to drive off. The driver was seriously wounded and captured after a high speed chase.
There were more clashes Sunday between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli army said it fired at Palestinians who shot at civilian busses. Soldiers also fired shells at a village near Bethlehem after Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a road leading to a Jewish settlement. The army says no one was hurt in Sunday's fighting, but witnesses and hospital officials report at least 10 people were wounded.
Also Sunday, a Palestinian farmer wounded by Israeli shelling Friday in Hebron died from his injuries. More than 400 people, mostly Palestinians, have died since the current violence broke out in September.
Saddam Says Israel is Behind Air Attacks
By Sonja Pace (VOA-Jerusalem) & Israel Faxx Staff Report
Ha'Aretz reported Sunday that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein holds Israel partly accountable for Friday's air attack launched by U.S. and British combat fighters on radar and infrastructure targets in Baghdad, even though Israel was not involved in the raid.
Hussein's government claimed Friday that "the aggression unleashed tonight against targets in the Baghdad area emphasizes that America schemes, and carries out its plots, hand in hand with the Zionist entity."
The announcement added that the air attack was an exercise undertaken to "set the stage for actions which the Zionist entity is planning to carry out against Arabs and Palestinians."
Israel's leadership reportedly was caught by surprise by the air raids. Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel Radio that "we don't need to be concerned about the events." Sneh said he sees no immediate danger from Iraqi retaliation following American and British air strikes against targets near Baghdad.
Sneh said an Iraqi build-up of weapons of mass destruction posed a long-term, rather than immediate, threat to Israel and the region as a whole. "Hussein is exploiting the absence of international inspections to build chemical, biological and probably nuclear weapons."
Iraq has called the attacks a "savage crime," and official Iraqi media have vowed retaliation against the United States, Britain and Israel.
Ten years ago, during the Gulf War, Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Israel after a U.S.-led coalition launched its offensive to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Israelis huddled in their homes and put on gas masks, fearing poison gas warheads. Sneh rejected suggestions that Israelis once again get out their gas masks.
The air attacks provoked demonstrations of support for Saddam Hussein's regime in leading West Bank cities. In Ramallah, about 200 demonstrators waved Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam Hussein and chanted "Death to America and Long live Iraq." In Nablus, about 1,500 protesters burned American and Israeli flags and pictures of President George W. Bush.
About 20 Palestinians and Israel-Arab lawmakers protested Saturday outside the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem.
Israeli Court Frees Settler Who Killed Palestinian
By VOA News
Israel's highest court has decided to set free a Jewish settler after serving eight years in prison for killing a Palestinian captive in 1993. In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court Sunday upheld a parole board's early release decision for Yoram Skolnick. The Jewish settler originally was sentenced to life in prison but that sentence was commuted to 11 years.
Skolnick was convicted of shooting to death a Palestinian man, who was caught and tied up after trying to stab another Jewish settler.
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