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(202) 362-5266 • 26 December 2003

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NEWSFLASH - Mas-Ha, Palestine (West Bank, Israeli Occupied Territories) 26 December, 2003:   Israeli and International activists coordinated today with Palestinians in the town of Mas-Ha in a direct action against the Israeli Apartheid Wall...   At one PM in the afternoon the group of approximately two-hundred non-violent protestors marched through the streets of Mas-Ha and approached the gate in the security fence which borders the village.   Upon arrival, Israeli and International activists began physically dismantling the locking mechanism in order to open the gate in a symbolic act of defiance against Israeli apartheid policies. The Apartheid Wall (Security Seperation Fence) in Mas-Ha lies several kilometers within the internationally accepted Palestinan borders, in effect illegally annexing large quantities of agricultural land.
     Within a minute of the beginning of the action, IDF forces took up positions and began firing live ammunition in the general direction of the nonviolent protestors. Ignoring the Israeli aggression, the activists held their ground and continued dismantling the gate.   During this time one Israeli activist, Gil Na'amati, was seriously wounded by Israeli gunfire. One American activist was also lightly wounded by shrapnel.
     Despite continued Israeli firing, protestors dismantled the gate's locking mechanism and opened the gate. Protestors peacefully withdrew, after which further support was organized for a continuing presence in the community and the medical needs of those injured.
     This response by Israeli forces marks a dramatic escalation of violence against non-violent peaceful protesters. The army displayed a marked lack of restraint and consideration for human life: at no point were the peaceful protestors endangering the safety of the soldiers.   ISM

SHARON ATTACKS, PROVOKES, PREPARES
EVEN MORE BRUTAL REPESSION and DEATH now AHEAD

Israel's latest helicopter assassination attack
"has annihilated the idea of sparing civilians
which was one of the main points of the
inter-Palestinian dialogue under the
auspices of Egypt".

MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 26 December 2003:     The Israelis have done things of this kind in the past.   General Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is in fact the master of tactical provocation followed by strategic escalation.   In recent years Sharon ignited Intifada II for his own purposes -- to take complete power, to essentially imprison Arafat as well as the 'peace process', and to quickly expand building 'the wall'.   Now Sharon is determined to further inflame the conflict and crush this generation of Palestinians into submission.
      Sharon knew very well that with his latest Christmas-day assassination of leading Palestinian resistance leaders in Gaza would come revenge and an end to even the talks being held by Palestinians about restraining civilian attacks.
     Sharon also knows he will then use the inevitable attacks ahead as his 'excuse' for the even more savage and brutal military onslaught against the now-fenced-in Palestinians he has been preparing.
     With the 'war against terroism' that Israel purposefully stokeed now unstopably underway, and with the the American election year now looming, Sharon is positioned and is preparing to make the year 2004 the worst ever for the Palestinians.
      No swords being beaten into plowshares in today's Israeli-U.S.-controlled Middle East.   Rather the Palestinian people are being mercilessly beaten into summission with ongoing cheering and assistance from the Americans even as the cowardly international community and the politically corrupted United Nations meekly protest.

Islamic Jihad pledges ''painful'' response to the
assassination of military leader in Gaza Strip

AFP - 26-12-2003: Israeli military chiefs on Friday met to consider retaliation for a Tel Aviv suicide bombing attack, as the Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the deaths of two of its members assassinated by Israeli gunships in Gaza on Thursday.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz met with army commanders and officials of the Shin Beth internal security service at the ministry's headquarters in Tel Aviv, near the scene of Thursday's bus-stop suicide attack, which killed three Israeli soldiers and one civilian.

The forum decided that the full closure on the West Bank and Gaza Strip would remain in force, although the Palestinian towns and cities themselves would not be under curfew, Israel Radio reported.

Thursday's attack came shortly after a military leader of Islamic Jihad, Maqled Humeid, was killed in Gaza City in a helicopter missile strike aimed at his car, prompting calls for revenge.

Four more Palestinians, including at least one other Islamic Jihad activist, were also killed and 13 wounded, Palestinian sources said, according to the AFP.

Islamic Jihad pledged a "painful" response to the missile strike. "This new crime will not go without punishment and the Al-Quds Battalions will inflict a painful lesson to the enemy as they have done throughout the intifada," warned a statement from Islamic Jihad's military wing.

"Israel will pay a high price for every crime it perpetrates against our people, its leaders and its cadres. We will not wait long for our reprisals," said the statement.

"The Zionist enemy (Israel) did not draw its lesson from past assassinations and did not understand that our people would not bend."

The statement said two chiefs of the Al-Quds Brigades were killed in the Israeli gunship attack. They named the men as Maqled Humeid and Nabil Shreihi.

An Islamic Jihad political leader, Khaled al-Batsh, told AFP that the raid had "annihilated the idea of sparing civilians," both Israeli and Palestinian, which had been considered in Palestinian truce talks earlier this month.

The raid "has annihilated the idea of sparing civilians which was one of the main points of the inter-Palestinian dialogue under the auspices of Egypt," said Batsh.

He accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of resorting to assassinations "as a means to pressure our people into accepting submission." According to him, Sharon was "entirely responsible for these crimes and for the coming retaliations by the resistance."

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