CAIRO, 18 August 2004 — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned in a telephone call to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that an end to violence in the Palestinian territories was crucial to get the peace process back on track, Egyptian television reported yesterday. Mubarak told Sharon that the end of violence was imperative “to create the right conditions for the peace process (between Israel and the Palestinians) to swing into action”, the television reported.
In Israel, a statement from the prime minister’s office said Mubarak had called to keep Sharon informed about “security measures” Egypt was taking along the border with Israel and the Gaza Strip. And Sharon reiterated his commitment to the plan for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the statement said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian national security adviser Jibril Rajub left Cairo yesterday after a two-day visit in which he held secret talks with Egyptian officials. There was no immediate indication of whom Rajub spoke to or the nature of his discussions but daily newspaper Al-Akhbar floated the idea that Egypt could host a conference between various Palestinian factions in September and call for a peace conference in Washington with Israeli and Palestinian delegations attending after the US presidential elections.
And Egypt is to train 45 Palestinian police officers from September as part of the plan for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the government daily Al-Ahram reported.
Cairo has also put itself forward for training the entire proposed Palestinian police force of 30,000 men to maintain law and order in the territory after the Israeli withdrawal.
Meanwhile, two Palestinian militants were shot dead by the Israeli Army near a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical and security sources told AFP. The two were named as Saadi Duhan, 20, and Shaadi Alakan, 20, both of whom came from Khan Yunis and belonged to Aburish, a small militant group whose stronghold is in southern Gaza and which is close to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, they said.
A statement made earlier by the Aburish group confirmed that two of its fighters had been “martyred” in an operation targeting the Mitzpe Atzmoma settlement.
Earlier, the army said soldiers had shot the two men who had been spotted in an unauthorized zone close to the security fence surrounding the Gush Katif settlement bloc. However, their bodies were not discovered and returned to the Palestinians until later yesterday.
A group of wives and mothers of hunger striking Palestinian prisoners vowed yesterday that they too would not eat until Israel met demands for better treatment and more frequent family visits. More than 1,500 prisoners, seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance to Israel, started a liquids-only fast this week to demand more frequent visits, better sanitary conditions, public telephones, and an end to strip searches.
Israeli officials call the hunger strike a ploy by prisoners to secure easier communication with militant groups waging an almost four-year-old uprising. Israel’s security minister said he did not care if they starved to death, while prison officials said they planned to barbecue meat outside the cells to try to break their spirit.
Organizers of the solidarity fast in the West Bank said only a few women had stopped eating so far, but dozens more family members were expected to join in coming days.
“Today I am starting a hunger strike. I am drinking just water and juice,” said Riham Masehal, whose son is serving a five-year sentence at a jail in the Negev desert on security-related charges. “For two years I have not seen him. They reject it on security grounds,” she said. “Even my daughter, they rejected her.” The Palestinian Authority has called on people to hold a one-day solidarity fast today.
Israel’s prison authority said it had started weighing hunger strikers and was giving medical checks, but had so far seen no health problems. About 7,000 Palestinians, excluding common criminals, are being held in Israeli civilian prisons or military jails, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
About half are either being detained without charge or until the end of criminal proceedings against them. The remainder are convicted of security-related offences. “They are prisoners of a people suffering under occupation,” said Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, visiting the solidarity protest tent in Ramallah. “We appeal to the whole world to listen to the cry of the heroes of freedom.” Sitting in the tent, Palestinian women held up framed pictures of sons and husbands. Yusra Muhammed Mustafa, whose husband is serving a 220-year term for killing Israeli soldiers, said she was on a “symbolic” hunger strike of liquids and fruit, upset that four of her five sons were unable to visit their father.
The Arab League yesterday called for the creation of a UN commission to investigate the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Secretary-General Amr Moussa called for “the creation of international commissions, under the auspices of the United Nations, to investigate the predicament of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers”, according to a statement in Cairo.
