Shorts: Mideast

Families: Bring Arafat to court

jerusalem (jta) | A group of families whose relatives were killed in terrorist attacks in Israel asked a Paris judge to order Yasser Arafat to appear in court.

Michel Calvo, a lawyer acting for the families — who brought a civil action against Arafat in March 2003 for crimes committed in connection with a terrorist organization — said Friday, Oct. 29, that the Palestinian Authority president should appear before an investigating magistrate "as soon as his physical condition allows it."

The civil action refers to five suicide bombings in Jerusalem between 1996 and 2002 and a shooting incident in Hebron in 2001.




Poll: Israelis personally affected by terror

jerusalem (jta) | More than one in five Israelis knows someone killed during the intifada, a new survey has found.

Two-thirds of the 1,613 Israelis surveyed in the University of Haifa study say they have less faith in their government's ability to protect them since the intifada began in September 2000.

More than 60 percent of the Israeli Arabs surveyed said they were pessimistic about the future, a higher percentage than among Israeli Jews.




Palestinian toll high in October

jerusalem (jta) | Israel killed more Palestinians in October than in any other month since the intifada began four years ago. According to Ha'aretz, 165 Palestinians were killed, 159 of them in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group said 148 Palestinians were killed, while the Palestinian Red Crescent said 142. Most of the dead were fighters in terrorist organizations.

Israel launched an operation in Gaza last month to stop Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns, and is preparing to withdraw from Gaza next year as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.




Haredim riot at Jerusalem intersection

jerusalem (jps) | Several hundred fervently religious Jews set garbage bins on fire in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood Mondy, Nov. 1, in protest over alleged desecrations of ancient graves, police said.

The haredim took to the streets of the capital to demonstrate against what they believe are grave desecrations being carried out as part of an ongoing archeological excavation in the northern Israeli city of Acre. Archeologists insist that they are taking care to avoid any movement of the ancient graves during their work.




Life sentence in lynching

jerusalem (jta) | A Palestinian involved in lynching two Israeli soldiers was sentenced to life in jail.

On Sunday, Oct. 31, an Israeli military court sentenced Jihad A-Karim Azziz Rom, 26, of Ramallah to life and an additional 20 years for his role in the lynching of Yosef Avraham and Vadim Nourezitz in October 2000 in Ramallah.

Rom also participated in the murder of Israeli teenager Yuri Goshtzin in July 2001.




Splitsville for Israeli political party

jerusalem (jta) | An Israeli political party is splitting in two for Israel's next election.

The National Union bloc will become Yisrael Beiteinu and Moledet-Tekuma, its leaders announced Tuesday, Nov. 2.

National Union is composed of several right-wing factions, representing both secular and religious Zionist voters.

Avigdor Lieberman, a secular immigrant from the former Soviet Union, will lead Yisrael Beiteinu, which will target secular rightists and Russian-speaking immigrants.




UNRWA head blasts Israel

jerusalem (jta) | The head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees accused Israel of a smear campaign against his agency.

Peter Hansen said Tuesday, Nov. 2, that Israel is crippling UNRWA's work by destroying its property, blocking aid convoys and keeping Palestinians from work.

Israel long has alleged that UNRWA and Hansen are biased toward the Palestinians, which Hansen denies. "They call me a hater of Israel," Hansen said in remarks to a meeting of U.N. correspondents. "If they are drawing a caricature of me, the caricature has to have a certain likeness to reality."

Israel recently retracted its accusation that Palestinian terrorists used a U.N. ambulance to transport a rocket to fire into Israel. Israeli officials said they had no comment on Hansen's remarks.