ANIN (West Bank), July 28: Five foreign peace activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) were wounded on Monday by the Israeli army during a protest against Israel’s security fence in the northern West Bank, medical sources said.
The sources said the injuries were from both rubber and live bullets and that one of the five was seriously injured.
The army opened fire when a crowd of some 500 Palestinians, led by a group of 100 ISM actvists, tore down a gate in the fence near the village of Aneen, a spokesman for the activists said.
The clash highlighted the anger stirred by the construction of the fence, an issue on which Israel and the United States disagree. It is likely to be raised in talks between Mr Sharon and US President George Bush in the White House on Tuesday.
Mr Sharon hopes a decision by his government on Sunday to release 540 Palestinian prisoners, including 210 members of militant groups, will help his US trip go smoothly.
The release is one of several gestures by Israel intended to help moderate Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas implement a US-backed peace “road map”. For their part, Palestinian militant groups declared a three-month truce on June 29.
However, 1,000 people in the Gaza Strip staged a march on Monday to demand the release of all 6,000 or so Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The fence and the prisoners remain obstacles to progress on the road map, which is intended to end Israeli-Palestinian violence and establish a Palestinian state by 2005.
Mohammed al Hindi, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, said: “If the Israeli government does not release all Palestinian prisoners, I think the truce will collapse.”
At Anin, troops used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades as nearly 300 protesters gathered on both sides of the fence and tried to tear down a gate, witnesses said.
The demonstrators included 30 Israelis, 50 foreigners and about 200 Palestinians, they said.
Palestinians fear the fence, a concrete wall in some places and a wire mesh with electronic sensors in others, is intended to unilaterally set the borders of their envisaged state.
It is due to cut deep into West Bank territory in some places and loop around several Jewish settlements.
Mr Bush called the fence “a problem” after talks with Mr Abbas last week at the White House. The president is expected to raise the issue with Mr Sharon on Tuesday, when their talks will focus on efforts to push the road map forward.
Some Israeli media have suggested Sharon could seek to defuse the dispute by postponing construction of segments of the barrier that bulge sharply into the central West Bank.
PERES PROPOSAL: Former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres proposed on Monday that the Old City of occupied Al Quds should be placed under UN control, with the rest of the city divided between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
In an interview with the Greek daily Kathimerini, Mr Peres said both states would then be able to establish their capitals in the holy city, while the Old City would be jointly run by Israeli and Palestinian deputy mayors serving under the secretary general of the United Nations.
Mr Peres’ proposal was welcomed by Faruq Qaddumi, the political chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who told the newspaper: “It is a change in the Israel stance. Until yesterday, they were saying that Jerusalem (Al Quds) was the eternal capital of Israel.”
Mr Peres, the temporary leader of Israel’s opposition Labour party, suggested that security in the walled Old City, which is in the eastern part of the town, should be provided by a joint Arab-Israeli police force.
The Old City would be “a city without weapons, without defense, with free access, open to all the world,” in which each of the three monotheistic religions would be responsible for the upkeep of its shrines and other sites.—AFP
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