GAZA, 21 November — Just a day after US Secretary of State Colin Powell called for a halt to settlement construction amid nearly 14 months of violence, Israel announced it would replace mobile homes in the Jewish settlement in divided Hebron with concrete houses. Israel further made clear just how contemptuous and arrogant it remains despite talk of a peace initiative by demolishing Palestinian houses in Gaza, where three Palestinians were wounded in fresh violence yesterday.
Palestinians condemned the Israeli moves as "irresponsible" and a "flagrant challenge to the American administration".
In Geneva, Amnesty International accused Israel of increasingly using torture in interrogating Palestinians. Israel said the practice was banned and any complaints investigated.
In a report to the UN Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group cited "strong evidence" that illegal methods including painful handcuffing, sleep deprivation and prolonged squatting on haunches were being used.
Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Levy told the body of 10 independent experts that a 1977 law forbade all forms of torture. Force was used "in isolated cases" and could cause discomfort or lack of sleep, he said.
The United Nations Children’s Fund called on Israel to release 160 Palestinian children in its jails and to stop using violence against young detainees.
Since a Palestinian revolt against Israeli occupation erupted last year, Israel has arrested more than 600 Palestinian children, sometimes holding them in harsh conditions, Bertrand Bainvel, a UNICEF official in Arab East Jerusalem, said.
"In some cases, children are subjected to violence. In other cases, they (Israel) used psychological threats and this should be stopped," Bainvel said.
Powell set out Middle East policy on Monday, saying two mediators would be sent to the region and repeated calls for a two-state solution and for Palestinians to end violence.
The speech marked the first time President George W. Bush’s administration has outlined ideas for ending the 53-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The move coincided with US efforts to bolster Arab backing for the war in Afghanistan.
In the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, Palestinian witnesses said tanks and bulldozers rumbled into a Palestinian-ruled area and wrecked 18 houses, leaving families homeless during of Ramadan.
The army said it destroyed two uninhabited homes and denied the area is under Palestinian control. Palestinians sifted through the rubble to pick out their belongings.
Omar Abu Shaweesh, a father of six who lives in Rafah, said the bulldozers moved in at night. "We were asleep when they came. We started to run, taking the children out. We were confused. We didn’t know what to do but to run," Abu Shaweesh told Reuters.
Yarden Vatikay, a spokesman for Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, said the mobile homes in Hebron were being replaced because they had become unsafe since the uprising flared.
"There is no political issue here, it is a security issue," Vatikay said.
Under international law Jewish settlements are illegal, being built on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war that Palestinians want for an independent state.
"Security, stability and cease-fire cannot be sustained while this creeping cancerous settlement is continuing," said Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, an aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
