August 9, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 29,1423

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TEL AVIV, Aug 8: Nine foreigners arrested this week by the Israeli army while demonstrating near the West Bank city of Nablus are facing imminent expulsion, an official of Israel’s interior ministry said on Thursday.

“They will be deported as soon as possible for disturbing the activities of the army,” the official said.

A Paris-based Palestinian rights association had earlier reported that three US nationals, five Frenchmen and an Irishman were arrested on Wednesday and transferred to a prison in Ramleh, near Tel Aviv.

Israel is preparing to expel the nine from the country, said the International Civilian Campaign for the Protection of the Palestinian People.

The nine men “were participating in a peaceful demonstration against the blockade around the Palestinian village of Hawara, which was violently put down by the Israeli army”, the group said.

The three Americans, one of whom was identified as Adam Shapiro, and an Irish national, are members of the International Solidarity Movement — an umbrella organisation of left-wing activists — according to a spokesman for the organization.

Shapiro briefly took part in an international protest staged in April at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s besieged West Bank headquarters in Ramallah.

The group denounced the arrests, saying they were proof “once again of the flagrant human rights violations committed by Israeli authorities with full impunity.”

RAIDS STEPPED UP: A Palestinian was killed on Thursday as Israeli forces stepped up their policy of raids, arrests and house demolitions after security talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials about the so-called “Gaza First” plan failed to make headway.

The youth was shot in the head as the Israeli army staged a new incursion into the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

The renewed surge of military activity came just hours after the foundering talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials on a proposed Israeli security plan to tackle the 22-month conflict.

Nabil Abu Rudeina, a close aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, placed the blame squarely on Israel, saying the Jewish state had imposed a set of new conditions on the security plan.

As those talks faltered, a Palestinian delegation led by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, and including newly appointed interior minister Abdel Razaq al-Yahya, was set to meet US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington to discuss much-needed Palestinian security reforms.—AFP