GAZA, 5 September — Israel deported the brother and sister of a Palestinian fighter from their West Bank homes yesterday, prompting Yasser Arafat to call it a "crime against humanity". The two deportees were given 1,000 shekels ($210) each and food and bottled water, an army spokesman said, before being "relocated" to the fenced-in Gaza Strip.
Kifah, 38, and his sister Intisar Ajouri, 34, accused by Israel of helping their brother Ali plan a bombing that killed five people in Tel Aviv in July, were deported a day after losing an appeal in Israel’s Supreme Court.
Amnesty International said the "unlawful and forcible transfer" of Palestinians under Israeli occupation was a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
On the political front, there were signs of movement. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said a breakthrough toward peace with Palestinians was possible for the first time. But a senior Palestinian official said Sharon was talking nonsense and only trying to cover up state terror against Palestinians in Israel’s military crackdown on a Palestinian uprising for independence.
Sharon spoke in a television interview two days after the Palestinian interior minister called on Palestinians to switch to peaceful resistance in their uprising, saying violence against Israelis had proven ineffective. Sharon told Israel’s Channel Two TV: "Now, for the first time, I see the possibility for a breakthrough for a political arrangement. It won’t be a simple thing or an easy thing, but there is a possibility."
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller met with Sharon after winning the agreement in principle of Arafat for a new European Union peace plan to end the two-year cycle of violence.
Moeller held talks with Sharon after meeting in the morning with Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, with whom Israeli media said the EU diplomat had disagreed over the timing of Palestinian elections, slated for early next year.
But the EU diplomat appeared to receive a far more welcome reception from the Palestinian side. Arafat told Moeller, his first high-ranking visitor in more than 10 weeks, that he agreed with the broad outline of the EU plan which aims to wind down the conflict and create a Palestinian state.
"We accept it in principle and we will provide you with a detailed response later," Arafat said at a joint news conference held at his headquarters in Ramallah with Moeller, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU.
"It is a very important initiative and we will study it very carefully. There is great need to move forward fast and save the peace process, not only for the sake of the Palestinians, but also for the sake of the Israelis and all the nations in the region," said the Palestinian leader.
