My family was among those displaced and, though a child, I vividly remember the panic and misery of that flight from our home in Jerusalem on an April morning in 1948, with the scent of spring in the air. Palestine by then had become a raging battleground as Jews fought to seize our land in the wake of the 1947 UN partition resolution. My parents decided to evacuate us temporarily. "We will return," they insisted, "the world will not let such injustice happen!" They were wrong: the world let it happen and we never returned. Little comfort in knowing that we were among many others, that we did not end up in tents, that conflicts do such things. Our lives, our history and our future had been traduced. In those early days, I would wonder with anguish how the Jewish incomers who took over our house could sleep at night, seeing our belongings, family photos, children's toys. Subsequently, Israelis made much of the danger they faced from five Arab armies in the 1948-49 war, but in reality their forces were greater than all their opponents' combined, and the latter ill equipped and poorly trained.

Growing up in Britain, I got no sympathy but rather kept being told about the need to give Jews a state they could feel safe in. But at whose expense was this generosity? We Palestinians had no hand in the Holocaust, nor in persecuting Jews. But we were transformed from a peaceable agrarian people into a nation of beggars under occupation, refugees, exiles and second-class citizens of Israel. Worse still, we are now labelled terrorists, suicide bombers or Islamic extremists. Our crime? We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And for that we have been repeatedly punished, most recently for electing the "wrong" government, headed by a party the west, not Palestinians, labels as terrorist.

I went to "Palestine" last month to see what 58 years of Israel had done. It was also springtime, but this was a shadow of the land I had known. I found a pathetically fragmented society, clinging to a fading dream of statehood against the odds. Israel's policies have broken up the Palestinian territories into ghettoes behind barriers and checkpoints. Gaza, supposedly liberated, is a big prison where, according to the World Bank, 75% are under the poverty line and a quarter of children are malnourished. Since January, Israel has kept the cargo crossings into Gaza closed most of the time. Flour ran out last month, and now medicines. The UN has warned of a humanitarian disaster. Now Israel is threatening to cut off fuel because of outstanding Palestinian debts, normally paid from Palestinian tax receipts, which Israel has illegally held back since January. The barrier wall, sealing off whole towns and villages, makes normal life impossible.

The new, democratically elected Palestinian government is paralysed because of Israeli and western sanctions. International aid to the Palestinians, $1bn annually, has been stopped; $70m donated by Arab states is blocked because banks, fearing international sanctions, refuse to transfer the funds. Money has run out for 150,000 public workers and their approximately 1 million dependants. I found deserted supermarkets and shopkeepers in despair. Armed men roam the streets full of anger at their loss of livelihood. Meanwhile, Israel's assault on the Palestinians continues. Last week the army killed nine and wounded 24. It mounted 38 incursions into Palestinian towns and arrested 61 people, including 11 children.

The Quartet powers have agreed a three-month emergency aid package. Because of the freeze on relations with Hamas, the aid will bypass the government, though how essential services can be run without a central administration is hard to imagine. Arab foreign ministers have warned of a breakdown in law and order if the Palestinian Authority collapses, but to no avail. The world's silence in the face of this cruelty is astonishing. There is no international outcry against a policy whose transparent objective is to goad the Palestinians into overthrowing the government they elected in favour of one more pliant to Israel's designs. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan is to draw Israel's border "unilaterally", annexing the large West Bank settlement blocs and keeping Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. The roads connecting it to Israel will bisect Palestinian territory.

What remains, 58% at most, together with the Gaza prison, will form the "Palestinian state". Olmert will be in Washington soon, no doubt seeking a rubber stamp. The idea is presumably that the Palestinians - dispersed and powerless - will then no longer be in Israel's way. Anyone who believes this, as the west's unthinking support for Israel seems to suggest, knows nothing about history or the will of peoples to resist injustice. The Palestinians are no exception.

· Dr Ghada Karmi is a research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University, and a former consultant to the Palestinian Authority

Individual Israeli achievements in fields like science and technology are impressive. However, for all modern intent and purpose, the State of Israel, as a state building model, is a failing experience -- ideologically, religiously, politically, socially and, if U.S. favorite nation status were removed, possibly economically as well. Without immediate and decisive intervention from the world community to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression on Palestinians, Israel's intransigence and U.S.-equipped regional hegemony will not only fuel another generation of Palestinians willing to sacrifice their lives to achieve their freedom and independence, but will also further jeopardize Israel's basic premise that explicit religious discrimination, namely a Jewish-only state, is an accepted basis for statehood in modern times.

In spite of the above comments by Israel's First Minister of Education (and reinforced by many other Israeli leaders), Israel was founded on the infamous fallacy that it was built on a "land with no people, for a people with no land." Israel has utterly failed to persuade the world, and more recently more of its own people, that this was a valid premise for statehood. Also, given the fact that historic Palestine was inhabited prior to Israel being created, Israel has been unable to ignore that this very same fallacy is a raw form of outright racism.

Israel expelled more than one half of the indigenous Palestinian population in 1948. Ever since, Israel has assumed a policy of civil discrimination, political imprisonment, torture, deportations, beatings, collective punishment, political assassinations, settlement building, economic dominance; the list is endless and intensified after the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in 1967. For being an "empty" land, the complications that Palestinians posed to the implantation of a Western state in the midst of the Middle East were overwhelming.

Since its inception, Israel has arrogantly refused to address the most crucial prerequisite of its establishment as a conventional State -- accepting the Palestinians -- those people that just happened to be living in that "empty" land of Israel. The Palestinians -- those that were forcefully expelled from their homes in 1948, 1967, and more recently in 2001 -- have been living in squalid refugee camps throughout the region. The Palestinians -- those that did not flee Israel-proper in 1948 -- are today fourth-class Israeli citizens. The Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem that have lived under Israeli military occupation for 40 years, to the day, will continue to haunt the international community until justice is served and the Israeli occupation is ended, in its entirety.

After nearly six decades of conflict, and after a decade of Palestinian political recognition of Israel on part of their lands, the Israeli people choose to sustain the conflict and elected another of its most notorious war criminals, Ariel Sharon. Sharon was charged, as captain of the vanguard, to lead Israel into its sixth decade of conflict. Sharon's illness and incapacitation cut his personal involvement short, but his master plans are alive and well under the leadership of the recently elected Israel Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.

Today, Israel seems determined more than ever to forcefully prove the original premise of its statehood: an Israel with moveable, unilaterally-defined borders and a Jewish-only population. Eleven Israeli Prime Ministers before Olmert, five of them after the signing of the Oslo agreements, failed. Prime Minister Olmert will fail as well. If Israel cannot produce a leader to move the country from a pariah state to a member state of the Middle East, no one will be to blame for the consequences, no matter how severe, but the Israeli people themselves.

This should not come as a surprise for Israelis who have studied their own history. Israel's founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, understood it well when he said,

"Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we came here and stole their country. Why should they accept that?" (David Ben-Gurion quoted in The Jewish Paradox by Nahum Goldmann, former president of the World Jewish Congress.)

Similarly, it should be no surprise that past Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, rushed to sign the now-failed Oslo Peace Accords after calculating the historic ramifications of the political earthquake that took place when the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, politically recognized the State of Israel. Rabin paid for that signature with his life, which was taken by one of his own citizens, a fanatic Jewish student. This was as close as Israel has ever been in closing the last chapter of its establishment. It was totally in Israel's -- the occupying power's -- hands then, as it is today, to end the occupation of the Palestinians and start the bitter process of reconciliation.

	Letter by Harry Truman recognizing the State of Israel.

Every step of the way, as Israel further entrenched its illegal occupation of the Palestinians, it has been continuously rewarded by the United States of America. Israel has been propped up, financially and politically, by every single U.S. administration at the expense of internationally unconscious U.S. taxpayers, fully obedient to the direction of the far-reaching Israeli lobby and narrow commercial interests. What started as a U.S. strategic ally in one of the most sensitive spots in the world during a Cold War that marred common sense, has rapidly digressed into a liability in an age of globalization that the United States alone is spearheading.

While the Bush Administration continues to ignorantly turn a blind eye to Israel's blatant violations of international law and human rights, the United States runs the fear that the globalized world will start to question the moral authority inherent in the U.S.'s unfettered support of an Israel that publicly pursues a policy that only has the intransigence to move an entire region into long-term political and economic turmoil. Countries that have bought into the New World Order of Globalization should start to internalize the consequences to themselves, if the U.S., in a world it single-handily runs, chooses to defend the wrong side of history at its will.

Today, on the 58th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (translated Catastrophe), Israel must choose between continuing an illegal occupation and preserving the self-defined, albeit discriminatory, nature of the State of Israel. To think that both can peacefully co-exist, or possibly even singly exist, is utter ignorance of history and human development. Also, for Israel to believe that the U.S. will continue to jeopardize its New World Order of Globalization for the sake of fulfilling an Israeli illusion of Palestinian submission is a miscalculation to the nth degree.

In November 1917 while the territory was under British occupation, the British declared they would support the establishment in Palestine of 'a national home for the Jewish people' providing there were proper safeguards for 'the existing non-Jewish communities'. Thereby acceding to Zionist demands. It should be noted that the historic Jewish population in Palestine did not necessarily support these demands; one indigenous Jewish leader described Zionism as evil.

Terror and Dispossession: Jewish underground terrorist groups such as Haganah, Irgun and Stern had the mission to terrorize the Palestinian street, destroy villages and slaughter entire Palestinian families. 34 massacres were committed within a few months: Al-Abbasiyya, Beit Daras, Bir Al-Saba', Al-Kabri, Haifa, Qisarya... These attacks aimed to annihilate the entire Palestinian territory and population (so-called Plan D), 50% of the Palestinian villages were destroyed in 1948 and many cities were cleared from its Palestinian population: Aker, Bir Al-Saba', Bisan, Al-Lod, Al-Majdal, Nazareth, Haifa, Tiberias, Jaffa, West-Jerusalem...

Israeli forces killed an estimated 13,000 Palestinians. They forcibly evicted 737,166 Palestinians from the homes and land. 418 Palestinian villages were entirely depopulated and destroyed. The Palestinian populations in Aker, Bir Al-Saba', Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda, Al-Majdal, Al Ramla, Safad, Tiberias, and West Jerusalem were almost entirely removed. A conservative total, almost three-quarters of a million Palestinians were made refugees.

1967 War: the tragedy of the refugees continued in 1967 with the breaking out of the war, which created a new wave of refugees. That year Israel occupied the rest of the Palestinian territories and many Palestinians were uprooted for the second time: 15.000 fled from the West Bank, 38.000 fled from the Gaza Strip and 16.000 fled from the Golan Heights. They found shelter in surrounding countries, such as Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

Prohibition of return: the Jewish settlers took over all what was left from Palestinian facilities, such as schools, hospitals, houses and abandoned lands. Settlements were built on the remains of the destroyed villages and the properties of these villages were given to the newly arrived Jewish immigrants that settled in the empty Arab housing.

Following the establishment of Israel, it legislated in two areas, the first denied the Palestinians the right to return home and the second took away their homes and land. These laws continue to be in force.

Israel has legislated to deny Palestinians the opportunity to return to their homes. It has refused to offer adequate compensation or restitution, yet at the same time, Israel has discriminated in favour of Jews by allowing them to migrate to Israel without having established any previous connection with the country.

The Law of Return is a keystone of Israeli policy. Jews, regardless of their nationality, are offered Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. The Law of Return is also open to those related by marriage or birth to a Jew, including the grandchildren of a Jew. In other words, a non-Jew may claim Israeli citizenship. 2,585,000 have invoked the Law or Return to migrate to Israel.

Palestinians, however, who may still have homes in what is now Israel, have been denied the right to return. The Law of Return directly discriminates against Palestinians even though under international law they the right to be repatriated.

The denial of the right of return is a continuing breach of Article 2 and Article 5(d) of Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. The continuing refusal by Israel to grant nationality to Palestinians who resided in Palestine prior to 1948 breaches Article 5(d)(iii). The failure to provide legal means to pursue compensation and restitution is a violation of Article 5(a) of the same treaty.

It is also a violation of Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.

Israel has passed a series of laws in which the property of Palestinians has been expropriated, in breach of international norms, and transferred to Jewish ownership.

Following the Nakba in 1948 Israel passed the Absentees' Property Law of 1950. This created an office known as the Custodian for Absentee Property, in which the legal and equitable title of absentee property was entirely divested from the property's Palestinian owners.

An absentee is set out in Section 1 of the statute: It is a national or citizen of Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, or the Yemen, (Section 1(b)(1)(i)), or was in any part of Palestine or a neighbouring country, (Section 1(b)(1)(ii)); or a Palestinian citizen. (Section 1(b)(1)(iii)), and, who was absent from his property after 29 November 1947, (Section 1(b)(1)), and if a Palestinian had left for a neighbouring country (Section 1(b)(1)(iii)(a)) or in an area controlled by an enemy force of Israel (Section 1(b)(1)(iii)(b)).

An absentee could see the return of his property if he could prove he had left his place of residence only "for fear that the enemies of Israel might cause him harm", (Section 27(1)), or, "otherwise than by reason or of fear of military operations". (Section 27(2)). The law then excludes the majority of Palestinians and other nationals of neighbouring countries who had, it is commonly stated, fled in fear of attack from Israeli forces.

It has been estimated that some 75,000 "Present Absentees" (i.e. they were resident in what is now Israel but not residing at the temporarily absentee property) had their property confiscated by the Israeli Government.

Moreover, Palestinian institutions were also affected. Legal persons, including associations and corporations, were declared absentee and had their lands confiscated by the Custodian. The land expropriated under this legislation has been estimated at some 3.25 million dunums.

The Israeli Government introduced a second land law that had a similarly devastating impact on Palestinian landholding. The Land Acquisition (Validation of Acts and Compensation) Law 1953 permitted the confiscation of land for military purposes or for Jewish settlement. This expropriation is placed at 1,255,174 dunums.

Although compensation is supposed to be paid out, a very small proportion of funds have been disbursed for compensation. By the end of March 1998, 14,364 persons had claimed compensation. Settlements had been reached on 197,984 dunums of land. Payments were made of NIS 2,724,137 and 53,710 dunums in compensation.

The objective of the law is simple: to ensure that Palestinians have no entitlement to their former homes. Although there is no patent right to property in human rights law, the Absentee Property Law defies international law by confiscating property of third party nationals without adequate compensation. Moreover, state practice on the right of return, and the right to a standard of living in the International Bill of Human Rights would indicate that the Absentees' Property Law is contrary to the principles of international human rights law.

Today's Facts

Palestinians are the largest single group of refugees in the world. Their fate is one of the most complex issues still awaiting a solution in the context of the "final status" negotiations between PLO/PNA and Israel. So far, no progress has been made, which is largely due to the controversy over how to define a 'displaced' Palestinian. The fate of the 1948 refugees is widely ignored.

The work of UNRWA, the Agency of the United Nations charged with the welfare of the Palestine refugees has provided the humanitarian services essential to the welfare of the refugees, particularly in the fields of education, health, relief, services and employment opportunities.

Today over 3.5 million Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA, of these some 33% live inside one of the 59 UNRWA camps and 67% outside. Every year the population amount of refugees increases by almost 3%

The UNRWA definition of a 'Palestine refugee' was developed to meet a condition, not to satisfy a theory. It was elaborated for operational purposes to determine which persons were eligible for UNRWA assistance. Displaced persons are people who fled in 1967; they are not regarded as registered refugee by UNWRA, or as refugees by the United Nations' definition. But the word refugee should include those who left their land in 1948 & 1967 as well as the Palestinian living abroad and who need a special permission to come back and stay in their country

For the Israeli the term refugee, referring to the Arabs who fled, is wrongly applied; they were merely considered to be migrants who should have been absorbed by the neighboring Arab states in the same way that the newly created state of Israel absorbed more than 500,000 Jews from all over the Middle East

General Assembly Resolution 194 adopted in December 1948, although not defining the term 'Palestinian refugee', under this resolution the refugees and their descendants have a right to compensation and repatriation to their original homes and land, because they have suffered "loss of or damage to property, which, under principles of international law or in equity should be made good by the government or authorities responsible"

Since June 1967 the Israeli occupation authorities have expropriated at least 5.839.000 dunums (73% of the West Bank & Gaza territory): 5.473.000 in the West Bank (incl. East Jerusalem) and 366.000 dunums in the Gaza Strip. Today, on average 8.630 dunums of land are confiscated every month for the purpose of settlements

The European Union and United States have cut direct aid to the Palestinian Authority since the Islamist movement Hamas formed a government in March.

Western powers want Hamas to recognise Israel's existence. Hamas says it will only do so if all Palestinian prisoners and seized territories are liberated and refugees allowed to return home.

Expulsion

About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their land after the creation of Israel in 1948 and the ensuing Arab-Israeli war.

An additional 200,000 Palestinians underwent a similar fate during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Abbas, who was meeting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accused Israel of "using every excuse possible" to convince the world that there is no Palestinian negotiating partner.

He charged that Israel is making this up in order to go ahead with its plan to redraw its borders with the occupied West Bank and siphon off the largest Jewish settlements built on Arab land.

The plan, which the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has pledged to implement with or without agreement from the Palestinians, "will practically destroy the concept of a two-state solution" to the Middle East conflict, Abbas said

"The Israeli government must release Palestinian funds and refrain from implementing its unilateral plans, as this would destroy the prospects of a negotiated settlement for good, inflame the region and strengthen extremism."

Israel has stopped transferring import duties it collects on behlaf of the Palestinains worth $55 mllion a month.

Abbas' dire predictions came as a new survey indicated that 65% of Israelis and Palestinians believe no Middle East peace agreement is possible during Olmert's four-year term of office.

Palestinian MPs held a special session of parliament to mark Nakba Day which began with a minutes silence.

"Our first priority is to lift the economic and political siege imposed on our people, then to end the occupation of our land once and for all, and to establish our independent Palestinian state"

Aziz al-Dwaik, the Hamas speaker of parliament, said the killings of six Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank on Sunday conformed to a pattern that stretched back to 1948.

"The Zionist occupation must be held fully responsible for all the things that have befallen the Palestinian people," he told the policymakers.

"What happened yesterday in Jenin illustrates how the Israelis are continuing the aggressions that we have seen from the Nakba until today."

Right of return

In Gaza City, several thousand protesters gathered outside the local branch of parliament with banners demanding the right of return, maps of historic Palestine, wooden keys to former homes, and flags.

"We will never abandon the right of return," they shouted, criticising Olmert's border project in the West Bank and standing around a refugee tent erected in protest outside parliament.

The fate of the original refugees and their descendants, who are scattered throughout the occupied territories, neighbouring Arab countries and other parts of the world, has been one of the thorniest issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Israel steadfastly opposes their right of return, aware that the demographics of the state could be overturned if all Palestinian refugees and their descendents move to modern-day Israel.

The UN estimates that there are more than six million Palestinian refugees in the world today, four million of which are registered with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), with a third of that number living in refugee camps.

Living conditions in neighbouring Arab countries vary a great deal, with Lebanon - where Palestinian refugees are banned from working in most jobs or owning property - being the worst example.

Studies and surveys have indicated, however, that far from all refugees worldwide would want to go back to their land or that of their ancestors.

The minority of Palestinians who stayed on their land when Israel was created are now described as Israeli-Arabs.

Nur is furious with the Islamists of Hamas, blaming them for crushing Western aid cuts, an ensuing economic crisis and intermittent Israeli closures on the Gaza Strip -- imposed since the movement first took office in March.

The European Union, formerly the biggest donor to the
Palestinian Authority, and the United States have ended direct aid because of Hamas's refusal to recognise
Israel, renounce violence or abide by previous peace agreements.

Israel, refusing to deal with what it considers a terrorist outfit, has imposed its own sanctions, withholding around 60 million dollars a month in customs duties on imported goods owed to the Palestinian Authority.

As a result, none of the 160,000 civil servants and security personnel on the government payroll have been paid for two months, affecting the livelihoods of around one million people, or a quarter of all local Palestinians.

Last week, a
World Bank report warned that the Palestinian Authority may cease to function and security discipline collapse if government employees continue to go without salaries for much longer.

"It's Hamas who has destroyed everything. They promised us 'change and reform'. The only change I can see is that there is no more money, gas or petrol," said Nur, open about his allegiance to the former ruling
Fatah party.

His brother, Iyad, with his neatly trimmed beard, shakes his head in disapproval. "We will live and overcome everything. If need be, we won't eat anymore but we won't give way," he said, in defence of his beloved Hamas.

Be that as it may, Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas heads Sunday to Russia and the European parliament, on a desperate mission to woo back foreign aid into the empty coffers of the boycotted Hamas government.

His trip will seek to capitalise on agreement by the four sponsors of the stalled Middle East peace process to establish a temporary trust fund which would enable donors to supply aid without having to deal directly with Hamas.

In the market alleyways, stall holders shout themselves hoarse to attract business, as children elbow through with their wares such as chewing-gum and socks tucked under arm, amid the endless haggling between sellers and buyers.

In a Gaza hi-fi shop, 27-year-old Hussein Said waits desperately for a customer to cross the threshold. "I used not to be able to sit down for a minute ... Look around, it's empty," he said.

"People only come to the market for fun. They look, touch, ask the price and say goodbye," said Abdel Karim Chabli, outside his stall that sells DVDs and antiquated looking radios.

He blames Europe and the United States. "All this is the fault of the donor countries who cut aid," he said. "If they really wanted, they could put pressure on Israel to open the crossing points with the Gaza Strip".

The army admitted that Erez, the main crossing point, has been closed since March 11 to Palestinians seeking work in Israel, while the main export terminal at Karni has only been open 58 days since January 1 because of security fears.

Nevertheless a spokesman maintained that goods have been passing through alternative checkpoints at Sufa and Kerem Shalom, which straddles the Egyptian, Gazan and Israeli borders.

Abbas urged the European Union (EU) to give the new Hamas-led government the chance to adapt to international demands.

Western donors have suspended direct aid to the Palestinian government to pressure Hamas into renouncing violence and recognizing Israel.

The move has plunged the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a financial crisis.

"I reiterate that, based on the constitutional power granted tome by our basic law which entrusts negotiation responsibility in the hands of the PLO Executive Committee, its Chairman and its Negotiations Affairs Department, we remain fully committed to returning immediately to the negotiating table to reach an agreement that ends this long conflict," he added.

The president told the European legislators: "At this moment, as another difficult moment is open to dangerous possibilities, we seek and await for a leading European role."

"The Israeli policy to reject our extended hand to negotiate and give peace a chance increased the frustration of our people," he said.

"The frustration created by the practices of the Israeli occupation and the absence of a positive outlook for the peace process formed the background for the legislative elections that took place last January," he added.

Abbas reminded the audience "we were careful not to allow our national struggle to be diverted from its course and to protect its conformity with international law."

The president said that he had asked the new government to amend its platform in order to conform to the commitments. "We are in a continued dialogue that will take us to an expanded national dialogue in a few days. I hope that this will lead us to the required process of amendment."

"Our approach needs the support of the international community. The new government must be given the chance to adapt to the basic requirements of the international community," he asserted.

"Stopping assistance to the Palestinian Authority will exacerbate the deteriorating economic and social conditions, and will weaken the network of efficient and working government ministries, administrations and institutions that the countries of the European Union have played a vital role in building and developing." he added.

Abbas also called on the EU to help put pressure on Israel to release the millions of dollars in tax revenues that it is withholding from the PA.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 14:30 on Sunday, 14 May 2006, IOF, IOF reinforced by two helicopters, moved into Qabatya village, southeast of Jenin. They besieged a 150-square-meter, two-storey house belonging to Mustafa 'Aaref Hamdan Ekmayel, where twenty individuals (four families) live, in the east of the village. They ordered, through megaphones, all those who were inside the house to surrender, threatening to demolish the house over them if they did not comply. A number of Palestinian gunmen exchanged fire with IOF. One of the gunmen, 23-year-old Tha'er Subhi Sadiq Hanaisha, was killed by several bullets to the chest and the head. His brother, 21-year-old Mujahed, hurried towards him and attempted to pull him away from the area, but IOF shot at him also. He was killed by several bullets to the chest. According to eyewitnesses, the younger brother was unarmed. When residents of the house went outside, IOF shelled the house and a bulldozer began to demolish it. At approximately 20:30, IOF withdrew from the area. Palestinian civilians and medical and civil defense crews moved to the area and started to remove the debris. They found the bodies of two Palestinians under the debris and evacuated them to Dr. Khalil Suleiman Hospital in Jenin. The two victims were identified as:

1. Elias Khairi Mohammed al-Ashqar, 28, from Baqa al-Sharqia village, hit by shrapnel throughout the body; and

2. Mo'tassem 'Ali Baheej Ja'ar, 24, from 'Allar village north of Tulkarm, hit by shrapnel throughout the body.

The two were members of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad.

During this attack, dozens of Palestinian children and young men gathered near Ekmayel's house and threw stones at IOF vehicles. Immediately, IOF fired at the stone throwers, killing 20-year-old Jihad 'Abdul Rahman 'Omar 'Assaf, with a live bullet to the head, and wounding 16 other civilians, including seven children and a journalist. IOF also arrested 17-year-old Mohye al-Din Mustafa Ekmayel.

Also, at approximately 14:30, an IOF undercover unit moved into al-Jabriyat neighborhood in the south of Jenin, traveling in a civilian car with a Palestinian registration plate. Soon after, at least fifteen IOF vehicles moved into the town to support the undercover unit. Members of the IOF undercover unit opened fire at 'Ali 'Omar Mohammed Jabbarin, 21, from al-Taiba village west of Jenin, killing him with several live bullets to the head, the neck, the chest and the hands. IOF left him bleeding and did not allow anyone to attend to him for 30 minutes. According to eyewitnesses, IOF willfully shot Jabbarin, while he was on duty guarding the headquarters of the Palestinian General Intelligence Services. Later, IOF besieged a house near the headquarters. They opened fire at the house and ordered its residents, through megaphones, to get out. When the residents got out, IOF checked their identity cards and searched the house. Before their withdrawal from the area at approximately 17:00, IOF arrested 'Essam, 'Allam and Akram Hassan Samoudi.

PCHR strongly condemns these appalling attacks and is gravely concerned over the escalation of IOF attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). PCHR asserts that such crimes serve to perpetuate the cycle of mutual violence in the area. PCHR calls upon the international community to immediately intervene to stop such crimes, and reiterates its calls for the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 to meet their obligations to ensure protection for Palestinian civilians in the OPT.

According to the report, Hadley made the remarks when he met representatives of Israel and the American Jewish community in the White House on Monday to discuss Olmert's forthcoming visit. During the meeting, the senior U.S. official told Jewish leaders that the purpose of Bush's meeting with the Israeli prime minister was simply "to get to know Olmert", said the report.

Hadley also said that any discussion about the details of Olmert's so-called convergence plan would be premature and that it was "only the beginning of the conversation" about Israel's future plans, said the post.

Regarding the issue of providing extra aid to Israel to finance the convergence plan, the post said, citing unnamed sources, that it will not be raised during Olmert's visit.

On Monday, the White House said in a statement that Bush would meet with Olmert on May 23 and that Bush "looks forward to discussing with the prime minister the strong bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel as well as a wide range of regional and international issues."

The visit will be Olmert's first trip overseas since his centrist Kadima party won the March 28 general elections.

Earlier, Olmert said that the aim of his meeting with Bush would be to secure international support for more pullouts from the West Bank, including financial assistance.

Olmert has vowed to set Israel's final borders by 2010 and that the convergence plan will be his government's priority, under which Israel will quit isolated settlements in the West Bank but keep bigger ones with or without the Palestinians' agreement. Israel withdrew from the entire Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank last summer, a move supported by Washington.