GAZA, 12 June — Israeli troops pressed on with their offensive and the siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s base yesterday after being given a virtual free hand by US President George W. Bush to continue its crackdown on Palestinians. Israelis are also set to start building a controversial defensive wall along the length of its border with the West Bank.
In other developments, a Palestinian man blew himself up yesterday killing a girl and wounding at least 14 people at a restaurant north of Tel Aviv and three people aboard an Israeli school bus were reported wounded, one of them seriously, when an explosive device went off as the vehicle was traveling in the southern West Bank.
Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the Palestinian man detonated the bomb at a restaurant in the town of Herzliya.
Bush, who met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday, backed away from a proposed Middle East peace conference, saying “the conditions aren’t there yet” for holding it.
“The meeting was good, friendly and, even more, we obtained what we want,” an Israeli official quoted Sharon as saying.
Palestinian officials meanwhile reacted furiously to Bush’s statement giving a green light to Sharon during their talks at the White House.
“This is a proof that this is an administration that cannot be trusted,” said Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.
“They have violated all their commitments and promises to the Arabs.
“The Arabs now should convene and hold an emergency summit to discuss this total American bias toward Israel,” he said.
“It is a shame that Bush says he does not trust the new Palestinian government which was even prevented from holding its first meeting because of the Israeli occupation,” Abed Rabbo said.
“Bush is literally supporting the same position of Sharon and supporting the policy of occupation.”
An Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman said yesterday Israel will start building a controversial defensive wall along the length of its border with the West Bank “in the next few days,”
“The construction will start in the next few days before the end of the week or at the start of next week,” he said, without elaborating.
Most of the new barrier will be in the sectors of Umm El-Fahm-Me Ami, north of Jenin, Qalqilya-Tulkarm in the northwest of the West Bank, and around greater Jerusalem, according to Israeli officials
On the diplomatic front, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal paid a brief visit to Cairo yesterday for discussions with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Maher on the outcome of President Hosni Mubarak’s latest visit to the United States.
In the day-long offensive yesterday, Israeli troops arrested 30 more Palestinians in the town of Ramallah, bringing to 61 the total seized in the two-day-old occupation of Arafat’s West Bank base. A spokesman said the new arrests were made in a training school for teachers.
An eight-year-old Palestinian child was killed and two others wounded by Israeli Army gunfire in Gaza City yesterday, Palestinian security sources told AFP.
The Israeli Army arrested the deputy leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Abdul Rahim Mallouh, in Ramallah yesterday, witnesses and Palestinian security sources told AFP. Mallouh, who is also a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was arrested at his home in the West Bank town, they said. Israeli state radio said troops were looking particularly for Mahmud Naif, who they say is a member of an armed wing of Arafat’s Fatah movement. Palestinian Minister for Civil Affairs Jamil Tarifi told AFP his son Yusef, the public prosecutor for the Ramallah area, had also been picked up.
Late yesterday Israeli infantry troops supported by army personnel carriers and armored vehicle entered the Education and Science college run by the United Nations in the West Bank town of Ramallah and held dozens of its students, Palestinian security sources reported.
The guard of the college, Nur El Dein Abu Shamaa, said Israeli Army units supported by tanks and jeeps raided the college, broke into the buildings and detained dozens of students. The soldiers searched classrooms and the administration building, while other soldiers interrogated students.
