WEDNESDAY, JAN. 23, 2002
WORLD NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN • 11A
Violence escalates in Middle East
Arafat's complex still surrounded by Israeli troops
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — A Palestinian gunman opened fire on Israelis waiting at a bus stop in the heart of Jerusalem yesterday, wounding eight people, hours after Israeli commandos stormed an explosives lab and killed four Islamic militants in the West Bank. The violence provoked outrage and warnings of retaliation on both sides.
Mideast tensions are again surging after several weeks of relative calm, with the Israelis effectively keeping Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat under house arrest at his West Bank government compound, and militant Palestinians abandoning an informal
truce.
The Israelis said they launched yesterday's commando raid in the West Bank city of Nablus and other pre-empive operations because Arafat repeatedly refused to act against militants. They also held Arafat responsible for the shooting attack on one of west Jerusalem's busiest streets.
"You can certainly expect an Israeli reaction," said Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner. "Israel has done very little until now. Apparently this was not strong enough medicine and maybe a strong reaction is needed."
At least eight people were shot, including six who were seriously wounded, and more than 20 people were treated for shock, rescue officials said.
linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, said the man's uncle, Adnan Ramadan. The shooting was retaliation for last week's killing of an Al Aqsa Brigades' leader, sources in the group said.
The recent series of pre-empive Israeli military strikes has raised speculation that Israel is trying to bring down Arafat, who has been confined to the West Bank city of Ramallah since early December. Israeli tanks have surrounded Arafat's government compound since last Friday.
The gunman, Saeed Ramadan, was a member of the Al Aqa Brigades, which is
On Monday, Israeli troops took over the West Bank town of Tulkarem and arrested at least 11 militants. On Tuesday, the Israelis pulled out of the town after the 30-hour operation, which left one Palestinian dead in a gunbattle.
In the Israeli raid in the West Bank town of Nablus early yesterday, Israel commandos
entered a ground-floor apartment in a nine-story residential building where Hamas fugitives were hiding, Palestinian witnesses said.
Palestinian medics found three bodies lying on a floor covered with mattresses and the fourth in the shower, in a sitting position. The man in the shower was stripped to his underwear and the shower tiles were smeared with blood.
Soldiers found large amounts of explosives in the apartment, and nine suspects were arrested, the army said.
Shortly afterward, more than 2,000 Hamas supporters rioted outside Palestinian police headquarters in Nablus, demanding freedom for Hamas detainees. Protesters burned three police cars, overturned a fourth and threw stones at officers who responded with live fire, tear gas and stun grenades.
Town in Congo struggles after earthquake
The Associated Press
GOMA, Congo — Thousands of Congolese lined up for water at a church and other points around this wrecked city yesterday as relief agencies trucked in food and tents for some 90,000 people left homeless by a volcanic eruption.
Aid workers were setting up water distribution systems and planning to start delivering food on Wednesday in Goma, where tens of thousands fled the streams of lava that cut through the lakeside city from Thursday's eruption of Mount Nyiragongo.
"We are finally getting some momentum" on distributing aid, said Michael Despine, the head of the International Rescue Committee's operation in Goma.
Earthquakes related to the eruption continued to rattle the
region yesterday. In neighboring Rwanda, just across the border from Goma, more than 288 homes and 19 schools have been destroyed since the tremblers began last week, the Ministry of Local Government said.
While trucks loaded with blankets and plastic sheeting rumbled down Goma's streets, hundreds of aid workers and U.N. staff from around the world met in a hotel to coordinate the relief effort. More than 30 percent of Goma's residential neighborhoods were destroyed by lava, said Ross Mountain, the U.N. deputy emergency relief coordinator. An estimated 90,000 people are homeless.
Mwendo Kambale, an office worker and father of four, said his family was sleeping outdoors in the rain and had run out of food on Sunday.
"The food is arriving very slowly," Kambale said. "I'm not happy because now I have no job, no home, no money and very few clothes."
Tens of thousands have fled the city, seeking shelter with families and friends in other Congolese towns and villages.
Patrick Nicholson,
spokesman for the Catholic relief
group COFAD, said workers had
registered 10,000 honeless families
in Goma so far and were
ready to begin handing out aid.
Shipments of blankets, tents and
other essential nonfood items
arrived yesterday on trucks from
Atlanta-based CARE and the
U.S. Agency for International
Development.
About 90 percent of Goma's business district was consumed by lava when Mount Nyiragongo, 12 miles to the north erupted,
In Kinshasa, Congolese Security Minister Mwenze Kongolo accused rebel authorities in Goma of "irresponsibility" for failing to evacuate residents in time and for refusing to allow a government delegation to deliver relief supplies.
sending huge lava flows through the city and cutting it in half.
The government has allocated $1.37 million to aid volcano victims, and negotiations were underway with rebel and U.N. authorities about getting the supplies to Goma, he said.
Goma was one of the few centers in eastern Congo with a functioning economy, and the destruction of its business and inventories spells hardship for all for the foreseeable future. Rwandan-backed rebels who control the city have no resources of their own to assist the victims.
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