JERUSALEM, 23 July 2004 — Israeli peace activists yesterday accused the Israeli government of drastically understating the number of unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank in documents submitted to the United States. The settlement watchdog group Peace Now said 51 outposts had been built in the West Bank since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came to power in 2001, but only 23 were listed by Israel.
It said the discrepancy was a deliberate attempt to disguise the extent of the settlers’ drive to grab more occupied West Bank land. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, demands the enclaves be removed. “This is a political move,” said Peace Now spokesman Yariv Oppenheimer. “I think they (the government) are not giving all the information in order to save some outposts.”
US Ambassador Dan Kurtzer has begun meeting Israeli officials to resolve the discrepancy, officials said, adding Israel had handed over maps and coordinates of outposts.
“The point of the discussions is to reach agreement on how many illegal outposts there are so that when Israel starts to dismantle them, as Israel promised it would and as we expect them to do, we will both know when ... all illegal outposts have been evacuated,” a US Embassy spokesman said.
Settlers have recently built scores of outposts, mostly tiny, isolated hilltop enclaves consisting of clusters of trailers, to strengthen Israel’s hold over the West Bank. The government’s failure to stem the spread of outposts and dismantle them has irked the United States.
Meanwhile, two militants were killed and a bystander was wounded last night when an Israeli Apache helicopter fired on a car in Gaza City, witnesses and medical staff said. Medical sources at Shiffa Hospital said one of those killed was Hazem Irheim, a 24 year-old member of Saraya Al-Quds, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.
Jihad sources said Irheim was responsible for abducting remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the neighborhood in May during an Israeli army incursion into the area. Witnesses said that the helicopter hovered over Gaza City and then fired a missile at the car that drove in Zaytoon neighborhood in southern Gaza City, adding that the car was split into two pieces.
In another development, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour yesterday backed Wednesday’s non-binding UN resolution demanding that Israel dismantle its West Bank wall. Speaking in Geneva, Arbour called on Israel to comply with the ruling and said “this wall should be demolished,” adding that it was “no solution to the conflict”.
She said she understood the Israeli government’s understandable need to maintain security but was confident that it could be brought about by other means.
The former Canadian judge explained that she wants to use her position to help all disadvantaged, pointing out that above all, extreme poverty must be tackled as it is the cause of many conflicts. “For me human rights is above all a question of justice,” she added.
The European Union’s foreign policy envoy Javier Solana defended the decision by all the EU member states to vote against the wall as he sought yesterday to ease tensions with Ariel Sharon’s government.
“The fence goes through occupied territories and from the very beginning we have been against that,” Solana said at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom in Tel Aviv.
