TEL AVIV, 22 August 2004 — The Israeli Peace Now movement yesterday condemned a reported decision by the United States to modify its policy toward construction in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. “The decision ... opens the door to a new momentum of building in all settlements,” the settlement monitoring group said.
“The decision severely harms the roadmap (peace plan) and could be the final nail in its coffin,” a statement issued by the movement added. The statement was a reaction to a report in The New York Times saying the US now approved construction within some settlements, if it did not expand beyond their existing built-up areas.
Previously, the US had consistently called on Israel to abide by the road map peace plan, which demands an absolute freeze of all settlement activity, including that accommodating for natural growth.
The paper quoted an administration official as saying that new US statements this week reflected “a covert policy decision toward accepting natural growth”.
It said that according to the official, a decision had been made this week not to aggravate Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s political troubles at a time when he was battling rebels in his own Likud party opposed to his Gaza pullout plan.
The paper also quoted an Israeli official as asserting that it was understood in Israel and in Washington that settlements could expand vertically, but not in an outer direction.
Israeli government sources earlier this month announced plans to build thousands of new apartments in a number of Israel’s main West Bank settlements, which Sharon has said he plans to annex in return for the unilateral evacuation of others.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people marched through the West Bank town of Hebron yesterday to show their support for a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
Waving Palestinian flags and photos of the prisoners, some 600 protesters marched from an Islamic college to the local offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross proclaiming their solidarity with the hunger strikers, an AFP correspondent said.
A similar demonstration by another 200 people took place at Damascus Gate in annexed east Jerusalem. A spokesman for the Arab-Israeli Communist Party Hadash also said dozens of people answered their call yesterday morning to gather outside Israeli detention centers in Hasharon, Meggido and Shata, north of Tel Aviv. They demanded the basic rights of prisoners be respected.
Palestinians representing various Islamic and national factions began a hunger strike yesterday in solidarity with Palestinians prisoners. Jamil Majdalawi, a senior leader from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, predicted the number of hunger strikers would rise.
Hundreds of Palestinians erected a tent near the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City’s downtown to express solidarity with the prisoners, who stopped eating Sunday. Majdalawi slammed Israeli Security Minister Tsahi Hanegbi for expressing his lack of concern regarding the prisoners’ hunger strike.
Hanegbi said Israel would not respond to the demands of the Palestinian prisoners “even if their hunger strikes continue for several months”. Majdalawi responded: “Our prisoners would say to Hanegbi that their strike will continue whether he accepts it or not, until they gain their legitimate demand for freedom.”
Israeli soldiers yesterday blew up what they called a suspected bomb-making operation hidden in a metal workshop in the Old City of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, witnesses and Israeli military sources said. Two Israeli soldiers were hurt in operations, including one slightly wounded in a blast in a nearby refugee camp.
In the city’s historic center, the troops rigged a strong explosion which collapsed the empty building, the witnesses said. An Israeli military source said the soldiers blew up explosives they found inside, as well as chemicals used to make bombs.
In another development, the Allenby crossing between the West Bank and Jordan will be open for 36 hours starting yesterday, Palestinian and Israeli sources said, because of exceptionally high traffic. Some 10,000 people from both sides are expected to cross the border in the next several days, the director of the Palestinian terminal, Nazim Mohanan, told AFP. The crossing is normally open for eight hours a day.
