Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman held talks in Israel and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to meet separately with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday.

"The test period accorded by the prime minister to the Palestinians is nearing the end," said Tzahi Hanegbi, a key ally of Olmert and chairman of parliament's influential defence and foreign affairs committee.

"The prime minister said the policy of restraint will only last a few days," the MP added, speaking on public radio.

Militants in Gaza fired isolated rockets towards southern Israel on each of the first three days of the truce, violating an accord brokered after 400 Palestinians and three Israelis were killed in Gaza in five months.

A source in Olmert's office similarly emphasized that "Israel's patience has limits", in comments to AFP on Wednesday.

"The prime minister ordered the army not to respond although since the start of the ceasefire 12 rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory," added the official.

The latest projectile landed on Tuesday in the cemetery of Sderot, Defence Minister Amir Peretz's hometown that has borne the brunt of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past six years.

One of the nebulous cells of the radical Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is linked to Abbas's Fatah party, claimed the attack, which it said was retaliation for Israeli operations in the West Bank.

Although Palestinian rockets are frequently inaccurate, they have killed 10 people inside the Jewish state since the Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000, causing misery and fear in communities close to the Gaza Strip.

Consolidating the truce will be a priority of the visit by Washington's top diplomat Thursday.

Rice is to meet Abbas in the West Bank oasis town of Jericho followed by an afternoon visit to Jerusalem to meet Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The talks come amid international hopes of kickstarting Middle East peace efforts after a six-year hiatus.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice would press Abbas to cement the truce and pointed out that while the president had deployed security forces in northern Gaza, they had so far failed to stop the sporadic attacks.

"We would hope that they would be effective in stopping any further rocket attacks or any terrorist attacks that might emanate from Gaza," he said.

In Israel, Egypt's intelligence chief Suleiman, who last week met the exiled political chief of the Palestinian ruling Islamist party Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, held talks with Olmert and Peretz on Wednesday.

The talks, shrouded in secrecy, were to focus on efforts to release an Israeli soldier captured by militants in June, the truce, and ending arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, an Israeli official said before the meetings.

Apart from Olmert and Peretz, Suleiman was also to meet the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, and Infrastructure Minister Benyamin Ben Eliezer.

Israeli army radio reported that Hamas and Israel are at odds over the details of a prisoner swap in exchange for the conscript Gilad Shalit.

While the Islamists want 1,400 Palestinian detainees released simultaneously with Shalit, Israel wants to release only 1,000 prisoners after the soldier has been returned, according to the radio.

The percentage of closures reached 86% since Palestinian resistance groups captured the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in June 25.

Only 12 trucks per day managed to cross the Karni Trade Crossing since mid January 2006, while Israel vowed to allow 400 trucks to cross per day before the end of the year.

In the West Bank, Israel violated the article that states that Israel should ease the suffering of the residents in the West Bank by easing restrictions on their movement and the movements of good.

It also violated the article regarding allowing freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Number of roadblocks increased by 44%, and movement between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is totally blocked, the report added, the West Bank is currently divided in 10 isolated sections.

Israel also violated its own vow to open a safe passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and its vows to allow the operation of Gaza naval and ground ports.

The agricultural sector suffered a 30 Million US Dollar loss this year, the shelling and bulldozing of agricultural hothouses and barracks caused additional 6 Million US Dollar losses, and 4200 employee in the agricultural sector are jobless.

The Eretz Border Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel had been closed since eight months.

Soldiers left the refugee camp at around 5:00 AM taking with them 10 residents to unknown locations. The 10 were identified as: Majed Al Azzah, 34, his brother Nihad 37, Jihad Nufal, 44, Issa Al Barbari, 46, Rami Mriziek, 28, Rami Qaraq'e, 31, Mohamed Abu Sha'ira, 35, Yasser Al Badawi, 33, Ossamah Abu Sha'ira, 23, and Amer Abu Sha'ira.

Moreover, another army force invaded the village of Al Shawawra, north of Bethlehem, and took prisoner four residents. Troops attacked houses and searched them then left the village, taking Ali Hamdan Nadier Salem, and his brothers Bassem and Shakier to unknown locations.

Mohamed Al Badan, 20, and Isma'el Abd Al Jalil, 19, were taken prisoner form the village of Taqua, east of Bethlehem; they were taken to unknown locations after troops searched and ransacked their homes, the families reported.

By Thursday morning the number of residents taken prisoner by the army during the predawn invasion to Bethlehem stops at 16 residents at the time of this report.


Elsewhere, in the northern part of the West Bank, Israeli forces took prisoner five residents from the city of Nablus and its Balata refugee camp.

Army vehicles and bulldozers stormed the city and the refugee camp and troops opened fire randomly at residents' houses. Residents also heard explosions ringing throughout the city. The army searched and ransacked scores of houses and took Amjidi Al Bakar, 22, Mohamed Abu Al Haiat, 22, Hamid Bashier, 42, Jamal Akup, 35- all are from the city of Nablus while Mohamed Abu Saleem, 21 was taken from his home in Balata refugee camp. All where taken to unknown locations.

Israeli army sources said that the arrest campaign troops conducted in the West Bank on Thursday at dawn targeted what the army calls "Wanted Palestinians."

None of these families were told why their relatives were taken, nor were they told where they were taken to.

On Wednesday morning, soldiers leveled one house in Hebron in spite that the family recently obtained a ruling from an Israeli court barring the army from leveling the house.

Troops also attacked the house of Hatem Abu Al Kabash, located on the northern entrance of Al village and forced him and his family in one room and took over the house and turned it to a military post, eyewitnesses reported.

On the face of it, the two regimes are very different. Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial discrimination that the white minority in South Africa employed to maintain power over the black majority. It was characterized by the denial of political rights to blacks, the fragmentation of the country into white areas and black areas (called Bantustans) and by the imposition on blacks of restrictive measures designed to achieve white superiority, racial separation and white security.

The "pass system," which sought to prevent the free movement of blacks and to restrict their entry to the cities, was rigorously enforced. Blacks were forcibly "relocated," and they were denied access to most public amenities and to many forms of employment. The system was enforced by a brutal security apparatus in which torture played a significant role.

The Palestinian territories - East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza - have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Although military occupation is tolerated and regulated by international law, it is considered an undesirable regime that should be ended as soon as possible. The United Nations for nearly 40 years has condemned Israel's military occupation, together with colonialism and apartheid, as contrary to the international public order.

In principle, the purpose of military occupation is different from that of apartheid. It is not designed as a long-term oppressive regime but as an interim measure that maintains law and order in a territory following an armed conflict and pending a peace settlement. But this is not the nature of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Since 1967 Israel has imposed its control over the Palestinian territories in the manner of a colonizing power, under the guise of occupation. It has permanently seized the territories' most desirable parts - the holy sites in East Jerusalem, Hebron and Bethlehem and the fertile agricultural lands along the western border and in the Jordan Valley - and settled its own Jewish "colonists" throughout the land.

Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories has many features of colonization. At the same time it has many of the worst characteristics of apartheid. The West Bank has been fragmented into three areas - north (Jenin and Nablus), center (Ramallah) and south (Hebron) - which increasingly resemble the Bantustans of South Africa.

Restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by a rigid permit system enforced by some 520 checkpoints and roadblocks resemble, but in severity go well beyond, apartheid's "pass system." And the security apparatus is reminiscent of that of apartheid, with more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and frequent allegations of torture and cruel treatment.

Many aspects of Israel's occupation surpass those of the apartheid regime. Israel's large-scale destruction of Palestinian homes, leveling of agricultural lands, military incursions and targeted assassinations of Palestinians far exceed any similar practices in apartheid South Africa. No wall was ever built to separate blacks and whites.

Following the worldwide anti-apartheid movement, one might expect a similarly concerted international effort united in opposition to Israel's abhorrent treatment of the Palestinians. Instead one finds an international community divided between the West and the rest of the world. The Security Council is prevented from taking action because of the U.S. veto and European Union abstinence. And the United States and the European Union, acting in collusion with the United Nations and the Russian Federation, have in effect imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinian people for having, by democratic means, elected a government deemed unacceptable to Israel and the West. Forgotten is the commitment to putting an end to occupation, colonization and apartheid.

In these circumstances, the United States should not be surprised if the rest of the world begins to lose faith in its commitment to human rights. Some Americans - rightly - complain that other countries are unconcerned about Sudan's violence-torn Darfur region and similar situations in the world. But while the United States itself maintains a double standard with respect to Palestine it cannot expect cooperation from others in the struggle for human rights.

"Gaza is dying," Patrick Cockburn reported in CounterPunch, "its people are on the edge of starvation.A whole society is being destroyed.The sound that Palestinians most dread is an unknown voice on their cell phone saying they have half an hour to leave their home before it is hit by bombs or missiles. There is no appeal. "

"Gaza is in its worst condition ever," Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz, "The Israeli army has been rampaging through Gaza--there's no other word to describe it--killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling indiscriminately....This is disgraceful and shocking collective punishment."

Predictably Gaza teetered on the precipice of fratricidal civil war. "The experiment was a success: The Palestinians are killing each other," Amira Hass wryly observed in Ha'aretz, "They are behaving as expected at the end of the extended experiment called 'what happens when you imprison 1.3 million human beings in an enclosed space like battery hens.'"

It is at times like this that we expect human rights organizations to speak out.

How has Human Rights Watch responded to the challenge? It criticized Israel for destroying Gaza's only electrical plant, and also called on Israel to "investigate" why its forces were targeting Palestinian medical personnel in Gaza and to "investigate" the Beit Hanoun massacre.

On the other hand, it accused Palestinians of committing a "war crime" after they captured an Israeli soldier and offered to exchange him for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. (Israel was holding 10,000 Palestinians prisoner.) It demanded that Palestinians "bring an immediate end to the lawlessness and vigilante violence" in Gaza. (Compare Amira Hass's words.) It issued a 101-page report chastising the Palestinian Authority for failing to protect women and girls. It called on the Palestinian Authority to take "immediate steps to halt" Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.

Were this record not shameful enough, HRW crossed a new threshold at the end of November.

After Palestinians spontaneously responded to that "unknown voice on a cell phone" by putting their own bare bodies in harm's way, HRW rushed to issue a press release warning that Palestinians might be committing a "war crime" and might be guilty of "human shielding." ("Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks")

In what must surely be the most shocking statement ever issued by a human rights organization, HRW indicted Palestinian leaders for supporting this nonviolent civil disobedience:

Prime Minister Haniyeh and other Palestinian leaders should be renouncing, not embracing, the tactic of encouraging civilians to place themselves at risk.

The international community has for decades implored Palestinian leaders to forsake armed struggle in favor of nonviolent civil disobedience. Why is a human rights organization now attacking them for adopting this tactic?

Is it a war crime to protect one's home from collective punishment?

Is it human shielding if a desperate and forsaken populace chooses to put itself at deadly risk in order to preserve the last shred of its existence?

Indeed, although Israeli soldiers have frequently used Palestinians as human shields in life-threatening situations, and although HRW has itself documented this egregious Israeli practice, HRW has never once called it a war crime.

It took weeks before HRW finally issued a report condemning Israeli war crimes in Lebanon. Although many reliable journalists were daily documenting these crimes, HRW said it first had to conduct an independent investigation of its own.

But HRW hastened to deplore the nonviolent protests in Gaza based on anonymous press reports which apparently got crucial facts wrong.

Why this headlong rush to judgment?

Was HRW seeking to appease pro-Israel critics after taking the heat for its report documenting Israeli war crimes in Lebanon?

After Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech in 1967 denouncing the war in Vietnam, mainstream Black leaders rebuked him for jeopardizing the financial support of liberal whites. "You might get yourself a foundation grant," King retorted, "but you won't get yourself into the Kingdom of Truth."

HRW now also stands poised at a crossroads: foundation grants or the Kingdom of Truth?

A first step in the right direction would be for it to issue a retraction of its press release and an apology.

HRW executive director Kenneth Roth "commended" Israel during its last invasion for warning people in south Lebanon to flee--before turning it into a moonscape, slaughtering the old, infirm and poor left behind. It would seem that Palestinian leaders and people, too, merit some recognition for embracing the tactics of Gandhi and King in a last desperate bid to save themselves from annihilation.

Email HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson--whitsos@hrw.org - and HRW executive director Kenneth Roth--RothK@hrw.org.

Norman Finkelstein's most recent book is Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history (University of California Press). His web site is www.NormanFinkelstein.com.

"The Movement condemns the imposition of illegal policies and collective punishment of the Palestinian people," the diplomat expressed.

She added that Israel should end its occupation and illegal practices in that region, including the building of the wall that is intended to annex Palestinian land and property.

She also called on Tel Aviv to immediately halt military operations, acts of violence and provocation as well as the bombing of the Palestinian civilian population.

On behalf of NAM she called for the withdrawal of occupation forces in the Gaza strip and for Israel to comply with its responsibility of repairing all the harm caused to the infrastructure.

The release of all Palestinian officials detained by Israel since June 28, 2006 also appears in the document.

"We call on all States and the international community as a whole to offer economic and financial assistance for the Palestinian people, with all urgency, to alleviate the current financial and humanitarian crises," the Ambassador said.

Nunez insisted that the Security Council take the necessary measures to make Israel respect international law and put an end to the occupation.

"It is quite fragile and we would like to see it consolidated and extended," Rice said in Jerusalem.

Both Olmert and Abbas support widening the ceasefire to the occupied West Bank, but it was unclear whether Rice's intervention meant agreement was near.

Arab allies of Washington such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are pushing hard for the United States to become more involved in trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in the hope that this will help the situation in Iraq.

Peace talks collapsed in 2000 before the start of a Palestinian uprising. Prospects for reviving negotiations sank further after Hamas Islamists won Palestinian elections in January and took over the government.

But the atmosphere has changed since the Gaza truce and a speech by Olmert this week pledging to reach out for peace.

"Hopefully we can take this moment to accelerate our efforts toward the two-state solution that we all desire," Rice said in Jericho with Abbas at her side.

Abbas has tried to form a unity government with Hamas or get the group to agree to Western demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept past peace accords.

DOORS LOCKED

But he said talks with Hamas were now at an impasse, his strongest indication yet that he had abandoned the effort.

"In the past few days we have come to the conclusion that the doors are locked," he said, without specifying what he would do next. An aide, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said Abbas would take "unprecedented political steps".

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, speaking before Abbas, said in Cairo that "the door must not be closed."

The collapse of talks could mean Abbas tries to appoint a government more acceptable to the United States, which has spearheaded a Western aid blockade. But some fear that could lead to civil war.

In Amman, President Bush emphasized his backing for strong moves by Abbas. "He deserves support in peeling his government away from those who do not recognize Israel's right to exist," Bush said.

Hamas accused Bush of trying to encourage civil war.

An end to unity government talks, though, could complicate efforts to extend the ceasefire and to broker an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who was captured by militants in a raid out of the Gaza Strip.

As preconditions for major peace moves, Israel has demanded the establishment of a Palestinian government that recognizes its right to exist, as well as the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was captured in June.

Thursday's visit was Rice's seventh to Israel and the Palestinian territories in nearly two years but she has failed to achieve any major breakthrough.

After meeting the Palestinians and the Israelis, Rice is set to go to the Dead Sea in Jordan to meet ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Egypt and Jordan.

Tutu chaired South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of white rule.

Meanwhile, Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman has condemned as an "overwhelming failure" efforts to reform and replace the UN Commission on Human Rights - an organization widely criticized for concentrating its efforts on condemnations of Israel - calling its replacement a political tool of its Arab and Muslim majority.

The ADL said the new UN Human Rights Council has "ignored the world's worst human rights atrocities and instead has pursued Israel for political gain."

The 47-member council, which earlier this year replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, has been severely criticized by some countries, including the United States, for moving four times to condemn Israel but not taking up human rights violations in Myanmar, North Korea or Sudan.

The Council has come under similar criticism from outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

"From the day it opened for business, the UN Human Rights Council has never operated with any moral authority," Foxman said in a statement released on Tuesday.

"The Council has failed in its most fundamental purpose: to monitor human rights abuses in all parts of the world. Instead, it has become a political tool wielded by its Arab and Muslim members who have the power of an automatic majority. The Council has ignored the world's worst human rights atrocities and instead has pursued Israel for political gain."

Earlier this month, the Council condemned an IDF artillery attack that killed 20 civilians in the northern Gaza Strip and ordered an on-site investigation by UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour.

The organization made no reference to Palestinian Qassam attacks. But when Arbour visited the area last week, she and her party were nearly hit by a Qassam that slammed into the Negev town of Sderot, in a salvo that killed a local factory worker.

"Closing in on six months since its first meeting, the Council has held one regular session and three special sessions and has yet to address a single state besides Israel," the ADL said in the statement. "The Council passed two resolutions yesterday condemning Israel while ignoring other more pressing problems around the world."


Annan chides Council 'preocupation with Israel'
Earlier this month, Annan declared that the Human Rights Council should broaden its focus beyond the Palestinian-Israeli issue to avoid accusations it is one-sided.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva for the last time before he is to step down as secretary-general at the end of the year, Annan said the council's preoccupation with Israel's actions in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories while ignoring the situation in Darfur had caused some to wonder whether it had "a sense of fair play."

"They [the council members] have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue, and of course if you focus on the Palestinian-Israeli issue without even discussing Darfur and other issues, some wonder 'what is this council doing?"' he said.

Annan's remarks coincided with the release of a council inquiry into Israel's actions during the monthlong conflict this summer, which accused Israel of "a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force... against Lebanese civilians."

The inquiry, which was instigated by members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, was not mandated to look at the conduct of the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah during the fighting.

In the message, Wen stressed the Palestinian issue is at the core of the Middle East conflict. "China supports restart of the Middle East peace process and resumption of political negotiations as soon as possible, so as to establish an independent state of Palestine that co-exists peacefully with Israel, on the basis of relevant UN resolutions and the 'land for peace' principle," he said.

The settlement of the Palestinian issue calls for political will and courage of the Palestinians and Israel as well, and needs support and assistance from the international community, Wen said.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China would continue its support for a larger UN role in the Middle East issue, he said.

"China is ready to make unswerving efforts with the international community for a fair and overall solution to the Palestinian issue and an early realization of peace and stability in the Middle East region," the Chinese premier said.

The United Nations set Nov. 29 as the Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.