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Newsletter : 1fax0924.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN Sept. 24, 2001, Vol. 9, No. 155
Israelis Dusting Off Their Gas Masks
By IsraelNationalNews.com
IDF Home Front Command officials report that last Thursday, 30,000 Israelis visited gas mask stations as opposed to 3,000 on preceding Thursdays.
Home Front Command officials have already given the order to open additional stations and to increase the operating hours of all the stations to accommodate the increasing number of persons wishing to have their personal protection kits inspected.
Israel Cancels Talks with Palestinians
By VOA News
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called off long-awaited truce talks with Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Sunday's cancellation came despite mounting global pressure on Israel to cool military actions in the region while the United States seeks to forge Muslim support for a global war against terrorism.
Hopes for a Mideast truce were raised last week, when Arafat declared a unilateral Palestinian ceasefire and Israel announced an immediate halt to all offensive military operations. The moves, which came in the wake of terrorist attacks in the United States, greatly reduced but did not eliminate fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In scuttling Sunday's meeting between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Arafat, the Israeli prime minister said Palestinians had reneged on a promise to halt all violence for two days immediately ahead of the talks. At least one Palestinian and several Israelis have been reported killed during that time frame.
Sharon also told his cabinet ministers that Palestinian authorities had failed to arrest a militant accused of shooting a Jewish settler last week.
Israeli media reports say Peres did not attend the cabinet meeting. Some news accounts quote him as saying the cancellation could have severe consequences for Israel's coalition government.
Sharon, speaking with Fox News Sunday, reminded the world that Arafat is a terrorist, and explained that there had been 88 acts of Palestinian violence against Israelis in the past five days. Sharon noted that these included the murder of a young mother, "whose three-month-old baby refuses to be comforted or to drink from a bottle, and cries only for her mother."
The Prime Minister said that Arafat had personally given the orders for the murder of two U.S. diplomats and one from Belgium in 1973. Sharon said again that he would approve a meeting between Peres and Arafat if there were 48 hours of quiet, but said that meanwhile there are emergency warnings of impending suicide terrorist attacks in Israel.
Sharon Pledges Full Israeli Support for U.S. Effort
By VOA News
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his country remains ready to help the United States in the fight against terror and will provide any kind of support it is asked for, military or civilian.
In an interview with CNN, Sharon said Israel has been facing what he called Arab terror, Palestinian terror, for decades and has suffered thousands of casualties.
He repeatedly referred to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat as a terrorist. He avoided a direct answer when asked if this meant there is no possibility of negotiating with Arafat. Sharon said Israel will not negotiate under fire and said he hopes Arafat understands that.
U.S. Denies Report That Israel Warned of Militants' Entry
Israel Faxx Staff
The Los Angeles Times, last week, reported that in August, Israeli intelligence warned U.S. officials that terrorists were preparing a large-scale attack in this country. The article cited as its source a high-ranking law enforcement official. The Times has since learned that the official's account was based on a British newspaper report, not on independent information.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Israel Faxx reported this story earlier this month)
The Times report noted that Israel warned the United States that hundreds of Islamic militants were slipping into the country was erroneous.
Israel's intelligence agency warned the CIA and the FBI that up to 200 suspected terrorists were slipping into the United States with indications that they planned to strike a "large-scale target." The Times cited an unnamed senior law enforcement official in Washington as its source.
But the CIA flatly denied the story, and FBI officials said they knew of no such advisory. "There was no such warning," CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told the Times."Allegations that there was are complete and utter nonsense."
The law enforcement official who was the source of The Times' story said Thursday that his information came from an intelligence report citing a British newspaper account, not from independent data. He said he had overlooked the information's origin when he first relayed it.
The Sunday Telegraph had reported that Israeli intelligence officials had warned their U.S. counterparts last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets were imminent. The newspaper said that two experts with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, traveled to Washington in August to alert the CIA and the FBI.
