 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
FULL ARTICLES
Monday, August 25
Israel Condemns Mumbai Blasts
Targeted IAF Strike Prevents Double Suicide Bombing
Four Hamas militants were killed in an Israel Air Force missile strike on a car in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on Sunday night. According to Palestinian sources, two helicopter gunships fired at least three missiles at the vehicle.
Among the four Hamas members killed were a senior member of the organization - Ahmed Aishtawi, two would-be suicide bombers and a forth militant. All four were members of the group's military wing, Iz a Din al-Kassam, according to security sources.
Palestinians reported that eight other people were injured in the strike, among them four, including a child, in moderate to serious condition.
Security sources said that the assassination was carried out in order to thwart a double suicide bombing planned by Hamas's military wing in the near future.
Israeli sources said that the main target of the strike was Ahmed Aishtawi, a senior member of Hamas's military wing who was in charge of coordinating activities between the organization's leadership in the Gaza Strip and militants in the West Bank.
Aishtawi, 24, was on top of the Israel Defense Forces' most wanted list, and is credited with transferring funds to Hamas terror cells in the West Bank, and planning many terror attacks against Israeli citizens, Israel Radio reported.
A Hamas spokesperson said Aishtawi was the head of a cell that fired home-made missiles, and specialized in attacks on IDF tanks.
Two of the other militants killed were apparently meeting with Aishtawi in order to receive explosives belts for carrying out suicide bombings. The fourth man killed was Valid Alhumes, a member of Hamas's military wing and head of the students' association at Gaza's Islamic University.
Hamas sources reported that only two of the dead belonged to the group, while the other two were members of Force 17 who were present on the scene.
The strike took place at approximately 9:45 P.M., between the Rimal and Sheih Ag'alin neighborhoods on Gaza's beachfront. Witnesses reported that IAF Apachi helicopter gunships fired at least three anti-tank missiles at a Palestinian car carrying Aishtawi and Alhumes that was approaching a Force 17 road block. According to the sources, two missiles were fired at the car, killing the two on the spot. Two Force 17 men who noticed the blast fled the scene, when missiles were also fired at them killing them as well.
"I was about to enter my house with my wife, when suddenly a huge explosion shook the the ground under my feet," said Shadi Wassi, a resident. "When I looked back, I saw a big flame burning the trees, then another two huge explosions hit the area."
The attack took place just 100 meters from the Gaza City office of Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan.
Sunday night's missile attack came three days after a top Hamas official, Ismail Abu Shanab, was killed in a similar strike. The killing of Abu Shanab came in retaliation for a Hamas suicide bombing that killed 21 people on a Jerusalem bus last week.
Qassam rocket lands near Ashkelon
Earlier Sunday, Palestinian militants fired a Qassam rocket that landed on the Zikim beach, just south of Ashkelon. No injuries or damage were reported.
This is the furthest distance north a Qassam rocket has reached inside Israel, and security officials believe that Hamas has increased the range of its rockets during the cease-fire to about 10 kilometers.
The rocket, a Qassam 2, which has a longer range than the regular Qassam rockets the Palestinians had used previously, was fired from a different area of the Gaza Strip, landing barely one kilometer from the city of Ashkelon, a major city in southern Israel, the Associated Press quoted an army spokesman as saying.
Although the rocket still fell within the 8-kilometer range previous rockets had flown, Israeli military experts know that the Qassam 2 - fired for the first time Sunday - has a longer range, the spokesman said.
Until now, Palestinian rockets had reached as far as Sderot, just some five kilometers from the Gaza border. Ashkelon is about 15 kilometers from the Gaza border.
Meanwhile, Chairman Arafat's security chief in the Gaza Strip on Sunday ordered action to halt rocket and mortar attacks on Israelis, security sources said.
A statement issued by Major-General Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh said forces under his command had been instructed to "maintain security and stability in all border areas and...to prevent violations". Palestinian security sources said the directive was aimed at halting mortar fire at Jewish settlements and the firing of rockets into nearby Israel by militant groups
The IDF's operation in the West Bank city of Nablus entered its fourth day on Sunday and troops there blew up an explosives laboratory found in the old casbah marketplace. Bombs, explosives and chemicals to create explosive materials were found at the site. This was the second such laboratory found in Nablus since the IDF launched its operation there last week.
A senior IDF officers said that a warhead similar to a Qassam warhead was found in the lab, indicating that the technology for making these rockets was being transferred from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.
Troops are continuing with their searches of the old section of the city, arresting wanted militants and hunting for weaponry.
In Gaza, IDF troops came under fire on Sunday in Rafah, close to the border with Israel. An hour or so later, Palestinians fired on soldiers near the Gush Katif bloc of settlements in the Strip.
'Arafat to be expelled after next big terror attack' Army Radio on Sunday quoted sources in Jerusalem as warning that "Yasser Arafat will be expelled from the territories after the next big terror attack." The sources said that although a final decision has not yet been made on the matter, another large-scale attack would compel Israel to expel Arafat.
Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad told Army Radio that such a step should be considered if the current wave of terror continues and if there is another large terror attack.
By Amos Harel, Jonathan Lis, Arnon Regular, and Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Agencies
Four people killed in IAF strike on car in Gaza City
Olmert: Peace Talks Possible Only After Terror Organizations Dismantled
"The only chance for the future of the political process is dependent on Israel's ability to wipe out Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert, who is also deputy prime minister, told The Jerusalem Post Sunday.
Olmert said that such a goal "will not be easy, but is not impossible," and will require intense efforts in the months ahead.
"If we succeed in critically wounding them [the terror organizations], perhaps the conditions will be created which will allow Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas] and [PA Security Minister Muhammad] Dahlan to fulfill their obligations and crack down on terror," he said.
Israel suspended its policy of targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders at the end of June, as part of an accord between Israel and the PA, but reinstated it last week following the Hamas bus bombing in Jerusalem that killed 21 people.
Olmert stressed that Israel is still committed to the internationally backed peace plan known as the road map, which also stipulates a complete settlement freeze and a Palestinian state within two years. But, he added, Israel must adapt to the new situation at hand, with the three major terror groups declaring an end to their unilateral cease-fire."The hudna did not die; it was never born, and from its inception was only followed on a virtual level," Olmert concluded.
The cabinet did not meet for its weekly meeting Sunday because Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is on a one-week vacation, resting on his Negev ranch. A senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said Sharon is being kept abreast of the situation on the ground, and monitoring the situation from his ranch.
At the same time, he said, the IDF acting on intelligence information is continuing its preventive actions against terror. While saying that Israel is not now carrying out Operation Defensive Shield II, the official said the IDF is inside Nablus and Kalkilya, and has forces poised just outside the Gaza Strip.
The official said Israel wants to see what effect the pressure of the last few days from the Americans, Europeans, and even Arab states like Egypt have had on the PA before launching a new offensive.The US, the official said, is pressuring the Europeans hard to place Hamas on their list of terror organizations, a move that would make it more difficult for the group to reorganize during the cease-fire.
"Most Hamas money comes from European sources," the official said, saying that blocking the flow of money would be highly important. "A terrorist organization that has no cash flow will find it much more difficult to buy new weapons and reorganize," he said.
Gideon Meir, the Foreign Ministry's deputy director-general for public affairs, dismissed PA action to close four tunnels in Rafah as "a show meant for the television cameras." Had the PA really intended to dismantle the tunnels, he said, they would have blown them up, as the IDF does, not just invite television cameras to watch them fill in the tunnels.
In the meantime, security officials released figures Sunday indicating the IDF has foiled some 54 terror attacks and arrested more than 100 terror suspects since the hudna was declared on June 29.
According to these figures, the number of alerts which stood at between 50 to 60 a day before the hudna, is now at about 30 a day, up by 10 from about two weeks ago.
Since the hudna, there have been about 280 different attacks, of which 192 were shooting incidents. During this period, 27 Israelis and a foreign worker were killed, and 152 people were wounded.The security officials said that since the beginning of the hudna Israel passed on to the PA the names of 22 men in the West Bank allegedly involved in planning terror attacks. Only five of them are currently in PA jails. In Gaza, the official said, Israel passed the names of 15 terror suspects on to the PA, of which only two are now in jail.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS and HERB KEINON
Israel Returns Bodies of Two Hezbollah Guerrillas
The German mediator who orchestrated Monday's handover of two Hezbollah men killed in clashes with the IDF has confirmed that Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli man captured by Hezbollah three years ago, is still being held by the Shi'ite organization.
Channel One reported that mediator Ernst Uhrlau, co-ordinator of the German secret services, said that Tannenbaum was in reasonable health. Retired IDF General Ilan Biran, who heads the Israeli team in the negotiations, is due to return from Germany in the coming days to give a full report on Tannenbaum's condition.
The release of the bodies was in response to the Lebanese group letting the German mediator visit Tannenbaum earlier this week, an anonymous security source said.
The source confirmed the Channel One report that Uhrlau met Tannenbaum, a reservist officer captured in late 2000, in Lebanon two days ago. The mediator was the first intermediary to see the Israeli alive since he was captured, the source said.
The security source said "proof of Tannenbaum's well-being is an important step in negotiations" for a possible prisoner exchange between Lebanon and Israel.
No further details about the visit were provided.
In January, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Hezbollah, said that Tannenbaum was alive.
Interviewed by Lebanese TV, Nasrallah said that his organization was holding "four prisoners, one of whom is known to be alive - the Israeli colonel, Colonel Tannenbaum - and three, whose fate is not known."
It was the first time since the kidnapping on October 15, 2000, that Nasrallah, the secretary-general of the Hezbollah, has stated that Tannenbaum is alive. Tannenbaum, a reserve colonel, is in poor health and needs a constant supply of medicines.
In his original statement announcing that Tannenbaum was being held in Hezbollah's hands, Shiekh Nasrallah said the Israeli had arrived in Beirut of his own free will and was not kidnapped, but he never explicitly stated the businessman was alive.
The German mediator's comments come hours after Israel repatriated the bodies of Hezbollah fighters, Ammar Hammoud and Ghassan Zaatar, to representatives of the Red Cross at Rosh Hanikra on the Lebanese border on Monday afternoon.
A security source in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonimity, said that in exchange for the bodies, Israel would get information on the fate of some of the Israeli soldiers and citizens believed to be held by Hezbollah. "Israel will hand over two bodies in exchange for information on Israeli hostages," an Israeli security source said before the handover.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed would receive the bodies at 4 P.M. (1300 GMT) and would hand them over to family members. The organization stressed, however, that the move was not part of an immediate prisoner exchange deal.
"This is definitely not a swap," said Antoine Bieler, ICRC head of delegation in Lebanon. "At least for today, this is a unilateral move from one side to the other."
But both Hezbollah and Israeli sources said the move came in the context of talks between them that could lead to further developments. Israeli sources called the handover a goodwill gesture intended to promote prisoner exchange, Israel Radio reported.
A security official in Jerusalem, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bodies were being transferred to Lebanon as "part of negotiations taking place through coordinators to make a deal to bring back missing Israeli soldiers and citizens."
Following a short prayer service, the simple, flag-draped wooden coffins carrying the guerrillas' remains were placed in two Hezbollah ambulances and taken to a hospital in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, before being sent to their respective home towns.
Sheik Nabil Kaouk, the Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, delivered a short speech saying the hand over was "in line with Hezbollah's commitment to bring home the bodies of all our martyrs." He thanked the ICRC for handling the coffin transfers.
Hammoud was killed after carrying out a suicide attack against an Israeli military convoy on the Qlai-Marjayoun road in southern Lebanon on Dec. 30, 1999, according to a Hezbollah statement faxed to The Associated Press. It was one of the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group's last suicide attacks on Israeli soldiers ahead of Israel's withdrawal in May 2000 from south Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.
Zaatar was killed in clashes with Israeli troops in November 1998 in Iqlin al-Tuffah in southern Lebanon.
On Sunday the chief of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement said progress was being made on an exchange of prisoners with Israel.
"I will speak a few words about the detainees... This file will be concluded, God willing," Nasrallah said, according to a Hezbollah transcript of the remarks faxed to Reuters on Sunday.
"Today we are closer than at any time in the past to this result," he said at the opening of a hospital in Lebanon's Bekaa valley, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Nasrallah did not elaborate, but said that mediations between his movement and Israel had resumed.
Israeli officials last Tuesday confirmed they had granted Germany indirect contact with Hezbollah on the issue.
The Itim news agency on Sunday quoted an Israeli source as saying that there had been some progress in German-mediated talks between Israel and the militant Hezbollah on a prisoner swap, but no deal had been finalized.
Hezbollah is holding four Israelis, including three soldiers and a retired colonel. The Israeli soldiers were captured in the disputed Har Dov area near the border with Lebanon in October 2000, while the reserve colonel was seized overseas during a "complicated operation," the movement said.Israel is holding about 18 Lebanese detainees, among them Hezbollah official Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid. Earlier this month, Nasrallah threatened to kidnap more Israelis if the Jewish state does not move on the issue of the prisoner swap.
Last week Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel is willing to engage in a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, but that Hezbollah cannot demand a mass release of prisoners in return for information.
By Haaretz Service and agencies
German mediator met Israeli citizen abducted by Hezbollah
U.S. Rejects Israeli Request to Join Visa Waiver Plan
The United States has rejected Israel's request to join the Visa Waiver Program, which would exempt Israelis from the need to obtain visas to enter the U.S.
The Bush administration has also refused to exempt Israelis from the new visa requirements that took effect worldwide this July, meaning that Israelis must still undergo personal interviews in order to obtain a visa. They will also need to be fingerprinted once that requirement goes into effect - a move expected in the near future.
However, Washington did agree to try to ease bureaucratic hassles for Israelis born in Arab countries who have encountered numerous delays in obtaining visas ever since the first changes in U.S. visa policy took effect, shortly after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. These changes state that visas for anyone born in an Arab country could only be issued in Washington rather than through the various local consulates, meaning a significantly lengthier process. The administration has agreed to try to exempt Israelis born in Arab countries from this procedure, but it is not clear when the new arrangement will go into effect.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom asked the administration to add Israel to the Visa Waiver Program during his visit to Washington last month. But after examining the request, Washington rejected it out of hand, for three reasons.
First, no new countries have been added to the program for years, and the administration is considering scrapping it entirely. Second, the key condition for a country's acceptance into the program is that less than 3 percent of visa applications from that country have been rejected over the last 12 months, whereas in Israel, the rejection rate is 5-6 percent. And finally, the U.S. feared that many Israelis would abuse their visas to stay on in the U.S. illegally.
Jerusalem, however, does not see the American refusal as the end of the story: The Foreign Ministry said yesterday that Shalom had ordered it to continue pushing the issue.
Currently, only 27 countries are members of the Visa Waiver Program, almost all of them Western European nations with the addition of a few non-Western industrialized countries such as Japan and Singapore. However, there are also a few exceptions, including Slovenia in Eastern Europe and the tiny Muslim sultanate of Brunei, near Indonesia.
Though Israel already meets several criteria for entry into the program, there is one criterion besides the visa rejection rate that could potentially be a problem: The U.S. must deem the country politically and economically stable, since otherwise lifting the visa requirement could result in large-scale illegal immigration. Argentina was removed from the program last year because of its economic crisis.
In the meantime, the U.S. administration has not been ignoring the problems caused by the new rules, which caused the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to be flooded with visa applications this summer. Some 16,000 applications were submitted during the first four weeks after the new rules took effect - about four times the usual monthly figure - as Israelis feared that with the process now taking so much longer, they had to begin early.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer responded by temporarily reassigning many embassy workers to the consular division, which handles visas, in an effort to eliminate the backlog. The embassy says that this effort was successful and that applicants can now expect to be summoned for their interviews within a week and to receive their visas within a few weeks. For genuine emergencies, it is even possible to obtain a visa immediately.
Though exact figures are not available, the U.S. administration's impression is that so far, the new rules have not resulted in any significant increase in the visa rejection rate in Israel.
By Aluf Benn
U.S. rejects Israeli request to join visa waiver plan
More Israelis Choose US Colleges
More students from Israel learn in the United States than from any other Middle Eastern country, according to a new study by the Princeton Review, the world's largest company specializing in preparing students for academic admission exams. Since 2000 the number has been growing gradually, with 3,458 Israel students, nearly half of them undergraduates, enrolled in American universities in 2003.
The number of Israeli students accepted by Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Columbia and Yale has increased significantly.
Columbia was one of the three most popular universities along with UCLA and UC Berkeley among Israelis, who, according to the study, chose them mostly for their central location and proximity to Jewish communities.
Roi Kashi, 22, of Tel Aviv, listed the chance to get a general B.A. instead of the more specialized Israeli one, and a good social life and sports, as his reasons for applying to four US universities.
But what if students are looking for the most beautiful campus? Then they should try for the University of California at Santa Cruz, according to the Princeton Review survey.
What if they are looking for the school where students leaned most to the Right? Then they should head out for Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. To the Left? Students should set their sights further north, to Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)., according to the Princeton Review's just published survey of 106,000 students at 351 colleges across the US.
Most religious students (albeit a different religion)? Brigham Young University (Utah), which was also voted "Top Stone-Cold Sober School."
And if sabras just out of uniform want to focus on releasing the tension of the last three years of terror attacks?
The University of Colorado at Boulder was voted "Top Party School."
However according to the reputation of Israeli students as summed up by Galit Alon, advisor for the Fulbright Education Foundation, that sounds unlikely. She reports that Israeli students, known for remarkable scholastic achievements and highly regarded at the best universities in the USA, "stand out mainly because they are older than the other students.
Many of them come from the elite forces in the Israeli army and are therefore more mature and have more life experience. Israelis are also known for their motivation and diligence and many of them make it to the Dean's Honor List."
The Princeton Review company, founded in 1981, runs more than 500 centers in the USA and in 11 countries throughout the world, including Japan, India, Thailand and Turkey.
Last year it opened it first center in Israel, with the Sight and Sound group as its franchise, offering preparation courses for the GMAT, SAT, TOFEL and GRE exams.
According to Guy Belostoky, vice-president of the Princeton Review in Israel, many Israeli prefer the SAT over the Psychometric exams since it can be used for Israeli universities well.
Many native English speakers also prefer it as it is known to be easier and they find it more accessible in Israel."
But back to the survey of American schools.
Where is the furthest place from race and/or class struggles? Campus relations are said to be the friendliest in McGill University.New York University was elected most gay friendly. DePaul University (Greencastle, Indiana) boasted the happiest students.
Israeli applicants might have an edge at the school which was voted toughest to get into the US Military Academy at West Point, New York.
By ABIGAIL RADOSZKOWICZ
Israeli Scientists Harness Sunlight to Replace Medical Lasers
The sun may offer a cheaper alternative to traditional medical lasers, Israeli researchers have discovered. According to Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, a researcher at Ben-Gurion University in Negev, Israel, who led the study, solar-powered lasers can kill tissues as well as medical lasers, but at a lower cost.
The group of physicists at the Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben Gurion University of the Negev - Dr. Daniel Feuermann, Gordon, and Mahmoud Huleihil - have developed a device that could emulate the actions of laser surgical tools, using only sunlight.
The procedure, explained in the journal Nature, would only work in sunny climates, but could one day provide a low-cost alternative to conventional laser treatments.
Laser surgery is used often to remove tumours by simply burning them out, instead of traditional techniques of physically cutting them out of the body with a scalpel. This latest research shows it could be possible to produce similar results with concentrated sunlight instead of costly laser treatment.
In their experiment, Gordon and colleagues transported sunlight into the operating theatre from outside through a system of optical fibres. These concentrated rays - which contained several watts of energy - were then directed on to the livers of two rats for just a few minutes. The tissue was seen to wither and die in the same way as it would after laser treatment.
The rats recovered well following the surgery; and after detailed analysis of the livers, the scientists found the treatment had worked as well as a laser. Not only could this solar surgery be a cheap alternative to laser therapy in sunny countries, it also appears to be safer for the surgeons to use.
The solar system uses a collector called the Tracker outside the laboratory window. A mirror gathers sunlight, transfers the rays to a small, flat mirror above the dish and sends the solar energy through a fiber optic cable in the laboratory's floor.
"This is only for sunny climates and even then for clear sky periods," Gordon told Reuters. "I do not wish to project the impression that we're offering some universally applicable solution."
Traditional medical lasers can cost up to $150,000 apiece, which has made it prohibitive for all but those who can afford advanced medical treatments. While its is becoming increasingly rare to see a scalpel in operating theaters in the Western World, as they are replaced by lasers, virtually all surgery in the Third World is done with knives. Even in Israel, most hospitals have only a few laser devices.
The device's great advantage is its low cost. "We've built one prototype," says Feuermann. "If a commercial entity is interested in applying it, I estimate a device could be marketed within a year or two. As for cost, the prototype cost $7,500 to build. Commercial production would probably lower that."
"Based on conversations I've had with manufacturers, I would project that if the solar surgery prototype could be mass produced, it has the potential to cost around $1,000 per unit," Gordon said in a statement.
"Over the years, we developed techniques to move sunlight from place to place," Feuermann told Globes. "We went to hospitals to watch lasers being used after we were asked to design an optical system that would move the laser from place to place. When we saw what they were doing, the question arose why not do the same thing with sunlight?"
The Tracker is at the core of the device they developed. This is a system of receptors that follow the sun, and concentrates its light, intensifying it 15,000-fold. The concentrated sunlight is delivered to the operating room through a fiber-optic cable. From there on, the surgery is identical to laser surgery. Laboratory tests to destroy tumors in rats have been successful.
The Tracker can easily be installed on a hospital's roof, even if the operating theaters are on the lower floors. Writing in the journal Applied Physics Letters, Gordon and colleagues said the solar-powered laser has been able to deliver about 5 watts to 8 watts of energy, similar to the power of some conventional medical lasers. Most surgery does not require more than 3 watts, according to Gordon.
Safety is another advantage to using the Tracker, its developers claim.
"Lasers are dangerous to the eyes," says Feuermann. "In our device, the concentrated light exits the optical fiber at wide angles. There is no beam. We aren't replicating the laser, but what it does - heating the tissue. The spread of light across several centimeters after the light exits the optical fiber means the rays are no longer dangerous. You could place your hand in front of the optical fiber and nothing would happen. If you touched the end of the optical fiber, you'd make a hole in your finger."
These advantages carry a cost. The dependence on sunlight, for instance. "You can't start surgery when there's a risk of cloud," notes Feuermann. "The device is designed only for regions where you know in advance that the day will be sunny. This is one reason why businesses are hesitating to enter the project. The market isn?t the traditional market, but those countries that can't afford laser systems for every hospital, but have lots of sunlight. Business-wise, the market is in poor regions where 2 billion people live, but lack the resources to pay."
Ben Gurion University has decided not to patent the device, so the know-how to build it is freely available. Prof. Solly Mizrahi and Dr. Ruthy Shaco-Levy of Soroka Medical Center joined the development team to test the device. So far, only tests on animals have been conducted. The next stage is trials on pigs, followed by clinical trials on humans. Meanwhile, the inventors are seeking financing for further research.
(Based on a report in Globes)
By ISRAEL21c staff
