|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Editions | myCNN | Video | Audio | Headline News Brief | Feedback |  |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|  |
U.N. General Assembly meets as Mideast crisis continuesBarak, Arafat vow to uphold agreement
KEFAR VAROM, Gaza (CNN) -- The United Nations General Assembly, in response to a request from the Palestinians, began discussions Wednesday on the ongoing Middle East crisis. The special meeting comes as Palestinian youths earlier Wednesday clashed with Israeli troops who were protecting a Jewish settlement. The new clashes in Kefar Varom, Gaza, occurred as Israelis and Palestinians appeared to be taking steps toward calming tensions that have killed more than 100 people -- most of them Palestinians and Arab Israelis -- during three weeks of violence. The Israeli Defense Force on Wednesday opened border checkpoints between Jordan and the West Bank as well as between Gaza and Egypt. Some travel restrictions on Palestinians also were lifted.
In the latest violence on Wednesday, at least 36 Palestinians were injured in a siege that stretched for more than four hours. Palestinian police charged that the Israelis were firing live ammunition at the crowd of stone- and petrol bomb-throwing youths. Palestinian police said they had been told to control the crowd but had been unable to do so because "the anger of the people is so strong." Israeli troops were firing at the Palestinians from a bunker separating the protesters from the settlement and from a bridge nearby, said Palestinian authorities. Kefar Varom is about 3 kilometers from Netzarim Junction, which has been one of the hottest flash points in 21 days of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Other unrest was reported overnight. Israeli army officials said two soldiers were injured when Palestinians threw a grenade and fired at troops near a village south of the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim in the West Bank. Shooting also was reported at an army checkpoint near Qalqilya in the West Bank. Exchanges of gunfire took place in Hebron. Palestinians: Truce agreement off to 'right start'Despite the new clashes, there were other signs that a cease-fire might be starting to take hold: Israeli and Palestinian security commanders were meeting Wednesday in the first step toward implementing the U.S.-brokered deal reached at a two-day emergency summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. In addition, the Palestinian leadership said Wednesday that implementation of a cease-fire agreement was off to "the right start for things to stabilize" despite continued violence in Israeli and the Palestinian territories. The two sides were watching each other closely one day after U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the cease-fire agreement binding on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat at Sharm el-Sheikh. The Palestinian leadership issued a statement saying: "In light of the statement that came from the Israeli Cabinet, which included Mr. Barak's instructions to his army and police to stop the violence and avoid more casualties, the Palestinian leadership emphasizes again its commitment not to do anything that could lead to tension and violence and to work so that the situation will calm down." In Washington, U.S. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said no one expected the violence to end immediately after Clinton announced the deal to end hostilities. "This is a difficult undertaking. I did not expect anything (the violence) to stop on a dime here. I think the question is whether the parties will do what they said they would do," said Berger. "Some things have happened that are positive already. The security officials on both sides are meeting as we speak. That's a very good sign. But there is obviously work to be done on both sides." Session criticized by U.S. and IsraelThe General Assembly is meeting despite Israeli and U.S. objections. The United States, however, was able to delay until next week the consideration of a draft General Assembly resolution condemning the "excessive use of force" by Israeli forces against Palestinians. Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian U.N. observer, said that draft resolution would be discussed based on what happens in the Middle East within the next couple of days. The Palestinians were waiting to see if Israel would reopen the Gaza airport and lift restrictions imposed on several towns. Al-Kidwa also defended the importance of the assembly's special session. "Attempts to create a better atmosphere and push things forward cannot exclude ... the necessity of looking very carefully at what happened, evaluating what happened, and taking positions vis-a-vis what happened," he said. But Yehuda Lancry, Israel's U.N. ambassador, said the session would be a "superfluous process ... destined to yield a resolution that is one-sided and divorced from reality." And U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to the United Nations said a General Assembly session "would beat up on Israel -- and that's all it would do. It has no teeth. It's just a session for venting." "We should commit ourselves to use the U.N. for positive purposes ... and not for inflaming already angry people," Holbrooke said. The latest clashes occurred after hard-line Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited a site in Jerusalem on September 28 that is considered holy by both Jews and Muslims. Palestinians revile Sharon and viewed his visit, where he was accompanied by armed guards, as intensely provocative. The status of Jerusalem is the most contentious issue between Palestinians and Israelis and the religious site in the Old City is at the heart of the matter. Albright asks Syrian leader to curb HezbollahIn a meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday to curb the radical Islamic group Hezbollah, warning that its kidnapping of Israelis was a dangerous incitement. But Albright emerged from the two-hour-and-20-minute meeting in a Saudi palace without a commitment from Assad, according to a senior U.S. official. In their first extended encounter, Assad told Albright that Hezbollah was a largely social organization gaining in influence among ordinary Arabs. Assad also cautioned Albright that anti-Israeli sentiment was on the rise in the streets of the Arab world and should be taken into account by U.S. policy-makers, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers October 7 on the Lebanese border. On Sunday, Hezbollah announced it had seized Elchanan Tennenbaum, a 54-year-old reserve Israeli air force colonel, in Switzerland. He works as a consultant in the electronics industry. The Israeli government has said it holds Lebanon and its patron, Syria, responsible for the kidnappings. The leader of another militant Islamic group, Hamas, has denounced the cease-fire agreement reached at Sharm el-Sheikh. Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin said his group was not bound by the deal. "We will continue fighting," he said. "Hamas and the other Palestinian factions will continue their confrontations with Israel until the end of the Israeli occupation and the expulsion of the Israeli forces from our land," Khaled Mesh'al, head of Hamas' political bureau, said. Carter: Don't overestimate Arafat's powerSpeaking to CNN in Atlanta on Tuesday, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who oversaw the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, said his advice was "to stop the violence immediately." However, he added that neither Barak nor Arafat could completely control the people of their regions. "If we think that Arafat can just issue an edict or an order, like a dictator, and everyone is going to get off the streets, or everyone is going to comply completely with a peaceful settlement, we are sadly mistaken," Carter said. In Israel, meanwhile, Likud Party leader Sharon announced that his party would not join with Barak in a national unity government. Barak had scheduled meetings with his former coalition partners, including the Shas Party, which is Orthodox, in an attempt to put together a new government. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Mideast violence continues, cease-fire denounced RELATED SITES: United Nations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Back to the top |
© 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. |
![[CNN Money]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/fn.logo.newsnet.gif){kind=logo}
![[SI.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/si.logo.gif){kind=logo}
(
