Mideast Report

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- A former PLO treasurer accused Yasser Arafat of corruption.

Jaweed Ghussein, who previously criticized the Palestinian Authority president for supporting Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s, accused him of pocketing aid money earmarked for the Palestinian people, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported Sunday.

Ghussein had been under house arrest in the Palestinian Authority for alleged corruption and failure to pay back a personal loan, a claim he disputes. Israel's deputy foreign minister, Rabbi Michael Melchior, said Israel intervened for humanitarian reasons to help Ghussein leave the West Bank and travel to Britain for medical treatment.

Security teams to get smallpox vaccines

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel will vaccinate some 15,000 security and rescue personnel against smallpox.

The Security Cabinet decided Wednesday to adopt the Health Ministry's recommendation to vaccinate police, rescue teams and other personnel who would be part of a first response to any biological weapons attack from Iraq.

The decision was made amid assessments that Saddam Hussein might use chemical or biological weapons against Israel if the United States attacks Iraq.

Drug dealers' fate sealed with a kiss

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Tel Aviv police nabbed 17 drug dealers with the help of an undercover agent who puckered up to suspects.

The operation was code-named "Sealed with a Kiss," after agent Orit Cohen's practice of sealing her drug deals with a kiss on the cheek.

Cohen, 25, was raised in a fervently religious family but left the movement several years ago. She decided to join the police last year.

Because of her familiarity with the Tel Aviv club scene, she was instructed to ingratiate herself with drug dealers. The strategy worked: Several of the dealers were nabbed at a party Cohen threw on the pretense that she was leaving Israel. Cohen had kept her work secret from her family.

Insurance fraud uncovered in Israel

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- Israeli police uncovered an alleged fraud ring in the National Insurance Institute.

Six people have been arrested for allegedly defrauding tens of millions of dollars from Israel's social security institution over a 10-year period by filing compensation claims for fictitious work accidents. The suspects include the Tel Aviv regional directors of the National Insurance Institute's work-accident division.

Stray camel causes death of Israeli family

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- An Israeli couple and two of their children were killed in a car crash caused by a camel in southern Israel.

A truck traveling Monday night on the Yeroham-Dimona road hit the camel, which was roaming free, and then swerved into oncoming traffic.

The truck hit the family's car, killing the parents and two children ages 5 and 6. A third child was seriously injured.

Police were searching for the camel's owners, who they suspect arrived at the scene and removed identifying tags from the animal, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv reported.

New Israeli party urges Mideast unity

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- A new Israeli political party calls for a confederation of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

The new party, called Tzedek, or Justice, is set to launch Sept. 12, and is led by 1973 Yom Kippur War hero Motti Ashkenazi and Palestinian newspaper publisher Hanna Siniora, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The group urges a "community of nations" on the "mandatory land of Israel" in which residents could choose to become citizens of Israel, Palestine or Jordan or choose multiple citizenship. The goal is to foster an economic body similar to the European Union.

Shas leader assails schools and courts

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- The spiritual leader of the fervently Orthodox Shas Party assailed Israel's judicial system and its public schools.

In his weekly sermon, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef warned that a person who turns to the state legal system, especially seeking to bypass a religious court ruling, would contract cancer or leprosy, the Israeli daily Ma'ariv quoted him as saying.

Yosef also said parents who send their children to secular public schools should be "thrown down a stairwell." Reacting to the remarks, liberal Knesset member Avraham Poraz called Yosef's "ridiculous" proclamations a "disgrace."