Sharon’s Reply to Road Map
Reuters & AFP


GAZA, 2 May 2003 — Twelve Palestinians, including a two-year-old boy, were
killed yesterday when Israeli forces raided a Gaza neighborhood shortly
after the release of a Middle East peace road map.

The tank and infantry raid sent a strong signal to a “Quartet” of US-led
mediators and to the new Palestinian government that Israel would press
ahead with such operations despite the new proposal to end 31 months of
bloodshed.

Residents of the Shijaia neighborhood outside Gaza City said Israeli forces
backed by helicopter gunships laid siege to the family home of a Hamas
activist and demolished the four-story building after a fierce gunbattle.

Hamas and an armed offshoot of the Fatah faction claimed responsibility for
a Tel Aviv suicide bombing that killed three people on Wednesday.

Arafat told reporters the pre-dawn Gaza incursion was a “massacre” and
Israel’s answer to the peace plan presented Wednesday by the United States,
United Nations, European Union and Russia and rejected by Palestinian
hard-liners.

Israeli officials say they will not change the way they confront an uprising
for statehood until the Palestinians show they are cracking down on fighters
as required by the road map.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the raid. He said Israel acted
against international humanitarian law by attacking the Gaza neighborhood.
He said he was “deeply disturbed” by the Israeli raids, and that “such
actions, including reported house demolitions, are contrary to international
humanitarian law.”

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, on a visit to Madrid, sounded a note of
caution to both sides at the start of a trip to Europe and the Middle East
to promote Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

“We’ve got to get beyond this period of suicide bombings and retaliatory
actions or other defensive actions that are taken...,” Powell told a news
conference. “We can’t let these sorts of incidents immediately contaminate
the road map.”

The Gaza raid targeted Youssef Abu Heen and his two brothers, all Hamas men
who the Israeli Army said had been involved in organizing “terror attacks”
on Israelis.

Israeli Brig. Gen. Gadi Shamni said soldiers surrounding the house called on
the people inside to give themselves up but the men responded with gunfire.
Hospital officials said the three brothers were killed in the ensuing
gunbattle.

Hamas said in a statement: “We are using a legitimate weapon to confront the
Zionist aggression — the weapon of resistance — and it will not be dropped
as long as occupation exists.”

Ahmed Ayyad, a blacksmith, said his two-year-old son, Amir, was killed by a
bullet to the head as the toddler stood near a window facing Israeli troops.
“I could not help him,” Ayyad said, choking back tears at the local morgue.
“What road map? It is nonsense...the Israelis do not want peace — you can
ask my son.”

Witnesses said six of the dead were civilians, including a 13-year-old boy
and a 17-year-old, and six were fighters. Hospital officials said at least
70 people were wounded.

Shamni said gunmen had fired on troops from positions in houses near the Abu
Heen home. Israeli military sources said eight soldiers were wounded.

Witnesses said 20 houses on the Egyptian side of the Gaza Strip town of
Rafah were damaged during the raid. Six of the homes were left without
roofs, while the windows of 20 houses were destroyed. The homes are located
on Saladin Street, which divides the border city.

Earlier in the West Bank, two gunmen were killed in a clash with Israeli
soldiers near the village of Yatta, residents said.

The peace proposal calls for a series of confidence-building steps,
including a halt to Palestinian violence and the suspension of Israeli
settlement building on occupied land, leading to the establishment of a
Palestinian state by 2005.

Hamas and other groups have vowed to keep up bombings in defiance of Mahmoud
Abbas, a moderate who took office on Wednesday after months of US efforts to
sideline Yasser Arafat.

Israel said Powell was expected to arrive for talks on May 8.

Palestinian officials said he would meet Abbas but not Arafat, who
Washington says is an obstacle to peace. Arafat denies fomenting violence.

The EU said its foreign policy chief Javier Solana would leave on May 11 for
a week-long visit to the Middle East to promote the road map.

Source:Arabnews.

With the very best of good wishes,
Musa Amadu Pembo
Glasgow,
Scotland
UK.
[log in to unmask]
Da’wah is to convey the message with wisdom and with good words. We should
give the noble and positive message of Islam. We should try to emphasize
more commonalities and explain the difference without getting into
theological arguments and without claiming the superiority of one position
over the other. There is a great interest among the people to know about
Islam and we should do our best to give the right message.
May Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,guide us all to His Sirat Al-Mustaqim (Righteous
Path).May He protect us from the evils of this life and the hereafter.May
Allah,Subhana Wa Ta'Ala,grant us entrance to paradise .
We ask Allaah the Most High, the All-Powerful, to teach us that which will
benefit us, and to benefit us by that which we learn. May Allaah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala grant blessings and peace to our Prophet Muhammad and his family
and
companions..Amen.




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