US President George Bush has stressed he had received a timetable for the
                        withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Palestinian cities, but he did not
                        talk about attaining progress in the mission of his secretary of state Colin
                        Powell which lasted for ten days in the region.

                        Bush commended the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and once again
                        described him as "a man of peace," but the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb
                        Oreikat strongly rejected Bush's description of Sharon, saying that this title
                        is "an award for the state terrorism and the war crimes practiced by Sharon
                        against the Palestinian people." UK Parliament member Gerald Kaufman
                        had denounced Ariel Sharon as a "war criminal" the UK daily the Guardian
                        reported.

                        While Bush was meeting with his secretary of state Collin Powell to be
                        briefed on the results of his mission, the Israeli warplanes and Apache and
                        F-16 planes were bombarding a village near Nablus and the bombardment
                        resulted in killing three Palestinians. The Israeli occupation forces also
                        broke into several villages in Jenin and Toulkarem areas and Abu Deis
                        university near Jerusalem and started large scale inspection and mopping up
                        operations.

                        News reports said that the Israeli forces which inspected the houses of
                        these towns one by one, arrested more than 50 Palestinians and took them
                        to unknown places, noting that the number of Palestinian detainees since the
                        beginning of the invasion until now reached 7,000 detainees many of them
                        are put in Atsyout camp in the Negev desert.

                        The Israeli defense minister Benjamin Bin Aliazer said that the Israeli forces
                        will continue breaking in operations and the imposition of the siege on the
                        Palestinian areas.

                        The spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry Jadoun Maer said that the
                        Israeli forces totally destroyed Jenin camp but he denied that the Israeli
                        forces had committed crimes. This was in reply to the UN special envoy in
                        the region Terry Rod Larsen, who described what the Israeli occupation
                        forces in Jenin camp after he had visited the camp as an "unbelievable
                        crime."

                        People coming from the occupied Palestinian territories and experts at
                        UNRWA said that they found in Jenin camp internationally banned
                        weapons and bullets of 5 mm caliber used by the Israeli occupation forces
                        against the Palestinians.

                        Jordanian medical sources said that one of the wounded who was admitted
                        in one of the Jordanian hospitals was hit by a uranium depleted bullet.

                        The Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres said that the Israeli military
                        operations will not solve the problem of the Palestinians.

                        Peres said in a statement to the Israeli radio that "our military operations in
                        the West Bank will not solve the problem and we have to find a political
                        outlet for this problem." Peres continued that the issue of the Nativity church
                        which he described as very grave and called for lifting the siege from the
                        Palestinian authority.

                        For his part the chairman of Jerusalem municipality Ehud Olmert admitted
                        the failure of the security measures which are applied in Jerusalem in
                        preventing the Palestinian resistance men from reaching set aims and
                        carrying out operations inside the city.

                        Meantime, Palestinian sources on Thursday denied the withdrawal of the
                        Israeli occupation forces from Jenin camp in the West Bank and stressed
                        that the camp is still under occupation and is under an Israeli siege. The
                        Monte Carlo radio correspondent in the occupied Palestinian territories said
                        that what the Israeli forces are doing is just a redeployment of some of its
                        military vehicles in some parts of the camp from one place to another.

                        The European Union has supported the request of the Arab states that the
                        UN Security Council adopt a resolution calling for the UN to investigate
                        into the destruction carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in Jenin
                        camp.

                        The spokesman for the European Commission for foreign affairs told
                        journalists that there should be an international investigation to this effect
                        and that the European Union will agree on that immediately. The Arab draft
                        plan called for lifting the siege from the Nativity church in Bethlehem as well
                        as the siege on Ramullah in the West Bank and it described what happened
                        in Jenin camp as "massacres."
                 http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020419/2002041911.html

                 The VISIE Foundation