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The Independent Palestinian Information Network
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Ongoing Updates: http://www.infopal.org/palnews/
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Contents:

*** [1] Brutality!!!

*** [2] Update: Missiles Hit West Bank Towns..

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[1] Brutality!!!

Logos Services Centre <logosc@yahoo.com>
Beit Jala, Nov 16 10:53:09 2000

Dear everyone on earth,

The brutality of the Israeli army have proofed itself yesterday.
They shelled Beit Jala non-stop for more than eight hours.
Causing electricity cut off. Killing a German Doctor who has
lived in Beit Jala for years. Harry Fisher, the doctor tried to
save his neighbors who had fire in their house from the
missiles. The ambulance could not get to the injured, they also
tried to walk on foot, but they could not. So Harry decided to go
himself to his neighbors. Immediately as he walked out he was hit
by a missile, that cut him into pieces.

The bombardment continued using tank missiles and then helicopter
missiles, which were the most scary. I still do not know how many
people were injured or how many houses were destroyed? I know for
sure that the horror we went through is nothing compared to
families who lived down town of Beit Jala.

I cannot write more now, I am tired, outraged and extremely sad
for the loss of Harry, whose nobility killed him.................

Marina Barham

[InfoPal comment: The killing of Mr. Fischer is confirmed in the
Reuters story below]

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[2] Missiles Hit West Bank Towns, Barak Sees Long Fight

By Ramit Plushnik-Masti, November 16 2:56 AM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel launched overnight missile strikes
on five West Bank towns, killing a German resident, and Prime
Minister Ehud Barak (news - web sites) told Israelis on Thursday
to prepare for a long fight with the Palestinians.

He poured cold water on prospects for a three-way meeting with
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news -web sites) and
President Clinton (news - web sites) to try to halt violence that
has killed at least 228 people, nearly 90 percent of them Arabs,
in seven weeks.

Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians on Wednesday as protests
flared on the 12th anniversary of Arafat's symbolic declaration
of an independent state from exile in 1988.

A Fatah official said Palestinians had launched a struggle to
expel Israeli settlers and soldiers from occupied lands.

``We are not close,'' Barak told Israel's Army radio when asked
about chances that meetings he and Arafat held with Clinton in
the past few days would lead to a peace summit.

The Israeli army said its helicopters fired missiles at offices
of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah
movement in Jericho, Hebron, Tulkarm and Salfit, as well as on
targets in Beit Jala on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The army said it attacked Beit Jala, in which a German resident
was killed, in response to Palestinian gunfire aimed across a
valley at the Jewish settlement of Gilo.

Harry Fischer, a 68-year-old German married to a Palestinian
woman from Beit Jala was hit by shrapnel, his brother-in-law
said. Hospital sources said eight Palestinians were wounded.

In the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said 12-year-old Jehad Abu
Shahma died early on Thursday of wounds sustained the day before
in clashes with Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis.

The Israeli army said one or two roadside bombs had exploded near
an Israeli convoy on the Karni-Netzarim road in Gaza on Thursday,
causing no casualties. A gunbattle erupted afterwards.

The army said its troops had also traded fire with gunmen in Gaza
overnight, inflicting casualties. But Palestinian hospital
officials said no wounded had been admitted.

Protracted Struggle

Barak took to the airwaves as day broke to defend military
policies which some Israelis view as too restrained and tell his
people that the conflict could not be cut short by a bloody
demonstration of Israel's military might.

``If we thought that instead of 200 dead there, that 2,000 dead
would end this whole issue and that at once everything would end,
then we would use much more force. But in our opinion...the
situation is the opposite,'' he told Israel Radio.

``We are in for a long battle that will really decide our future
in this country and it is a complex battle,'' he declared.

Arafat's adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said Barak's remarks showed
Israel was not serious about peace. ``This proves the intention
by the Israeli government to continue its aggression against our
people,'' he told Reuters.

Barak broke off already deadlocked peace talks with the
Palestinians last month and said he would not renew them until
Arafat halted protests against Israeli occupation.

``There are no negotiations. There are no discussions about
renewing negotiations and first of all we have demanded that
first there must be a dramatic change...in the violence.''

``In the current situation of violence there is no chance to
negotiate seriously, and we are serious people,'' he added.

U.S. Mediation

Barak met U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross on Wednesday night
in what a senior Israeli political source said was an effort to
``calm the violence, bring about a cease-fire and set the stage
for the renewal of the peace process.''

Ross, in Israel for Wednesday's funeral of Leah Rabin, wife of
assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was due to
meet Arafat at 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) in the Gaza Strip.

Abu Rdainah also dismissed talk of a three-way peace summit. ''It
is too early to talk about such meetings before a complete halt
for Israel's aggression against our people and before the end of
Israel closure on Palestinian cities.''

In televised condolences for Leah Rabin, Arafat said he was
committed to peace. ``In these sad moments, I say there are
prospects of light and hope at the end of the dark tunnel.''

But hope is in short supply on both sides after a spasm of
bloodletting that has all but extinguished the peace process
launched by Rabin and Arafat in seven years ago.

Anger has resonated across the Arab world, prompting several
states to cut ties with Israel, though Egypt and Jordan, the only
two with peace treaties, have not renounced them.

Arab countries have told Europe to come off the fence in the
conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in blunt exchanges
at a meeting of EU and Mediterranean states.

``You cannot be neutral vis-a-vis an aggression against an
occupied population by the occupier,'' Egyptian Foreign Minister
AMr. Moussa said after a dinner that lasted late into Wednesday.

``The Europeans have heard the unanimous position of the Arab
countries, those present and those absent, about the European
role,'' he told reporters at the meeting in Marseilles that was
boycotted by Syria and Lebanon.

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said neutrality was
not only unacceptable but ``immoral.''

Barak's security cabinet met for several hours on Wednesday to
discuss options to deal with the crisis. A senior Israeli
diplomatic source said the cabinet had taken decisions on ``how
to respond militarily to developments in the coming days.''

He added that there would be ``no substantive change'' in what he
called Israel's policy of restraint.