Who Will Get Arafat's Millions?

San Francisco Chronicle | Monday, November 08, 2004

Matthew Kalman

Ramallah, West Bank - The wife of Yasser Arafat was locked in a bitter dispute with Palestinian officials over the fate of his vast secret fortune as the Palestinian leader lay apparently near death in a French hospital, according to a report on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera.

Arafat's secret assets have been estimated at anywhere between $200 million (Forbes magazine) and $6 billion (U.S. and Israeli intelligence). Forbes listed him ninth in its ranking of the world's wealthiest heads of state -- even though he is a ruler without a country and many of his people are refugees.

In Paris, the struggle over Arafat's hidden millions threatened to overshadow his final days. His wife, Suha Arafat, hopes to inherit at least part of his fortune. But, according to Al-Jazeera, Palestinian leaders demand that it be handed over to the Palestinian people.

The assets are managed in a complex network of bank accounts, holding companies and stocks whose details are known only to his closest confidant, financial adviser Mohammed Rashid.

Suha Arafat has access to some of the money, but apparently even she does not know all the ins and outs of the secret accounts. Al-Jazeera reported that she asked Rashid to make out a list of Arafat's assets and that he refused, saying he would report only to the Palestinian Authority.

According to Al-Jazeera, Arafat had written a will leaving at least some of his fortune to his wife and their 9-year-old daughter Zahwa, but other reports said Arafat has no will, leaving most of his fortune in the hands of Rashid.

When the 75-year-old Palestinian leader was flown to a military hospital outside Paris on Oct. 29, Suha Arafat took control of his medical care, although the couple have lived apart for nearly four years.

Thirty years younger than Arafat, the Christian, Sorbonne-educated Suha Tawil married the Palestinian leader in a secret ceremony in 1992 in Tunisia, where she worked for the Palestine Liberation Organization. After Arafat's return to the Palestinian territories in 1994, she played the part of Palestinian first lady, but spent most of her time in Paris. She left the family's home in Gaza in January 2001 and took Zahwa to Paris, where they have lived ever since at the five-star Bristol Hotel.

French officials earlier this year began investigating the transfer of $11.5 million from Swiss bank accounts to accounts in France controlled by Suha Arafat.

"What is so strange for the Palestinian president to send any amount of money to his family and his wife, who is protecting the Palestinian interests abroad, and the money came and will come legally?" she told an interviewer from Al-Hayat, an Arab-language newspaper published in London.

With Arafat apparently near death, questions linger about what has happened to the billions in aid money from the international community to build the nascent Palestinian state. Many suspect that Suha Arafat's luxurious lifestyle -- as well as the cars, villas and expensive education of other prominent Palestinian families -- was bought with cash stolen from international donors and tax revenues.

In 1997, the Palestinian Authority's own officials found that $323 million -- more than a third of the total budget -- had gone missing. The International Monetary Fund said last year that $750 million had been "diverted" from the Palestinian budget up to the year 2000. Identifying Arafat's personal fortune and separating it from numerous secret bank accounts in the name of the PLO and Fatah, his political faction, will be no easy task.

Jean-Claude Robard, a Swiss investment adviser, told Al-Jazeera that Arafat opened his first secret bank account in 1965 with a $50,000 check from the emir of Kuwait. Since then, Robard said, Arafat has set up other accounts in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. Robard said Arafat also owns a number of hotels and holiday resorts in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland and Austria and is the main shareholder in two cellular telephone companies operating in Tunisia and Algeria.

After the Oslo peace accords were finalized in 1994, tax and customs revenues collected by Israel on Palestinian salaries and goods were transferred to a personal account in Arafat's name held at an Israeli bank branch in Tel Aviv. Between 1996 and 2000, Israel paid more than $500 million in tax revenues on oil sales alone into Arafat's personal account, according to a report by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

In December 2002, an Israeli accountant named Ozrad Lev said in an interview with the Israeli daily Maariv that he was involved in the illegal transfer of $300 million in Palestinian funds to Arafat through a secret Swiss account. The funds were transferred from an official Palestinian account at a branch of the Arab Bank in Ramallah by Arafat and one of his top aides, said Lev.

He also said he helped open and manage the Swiss account with Yossi Ginossar, a former Israeli security official with widespread Palestinian business dealings who died earlier this year.

Lev told Maariv that the account was opened at the Swiss bank Lombard Odier & Cie in April 1997 using copies of Arafat's personal documents, including his passport. The account was opened in the name of a front company, Ledbury, which was later changed to Crouper.

Two years ago, American accountant Jim Prince told CBS' "60 Minutes" that part of the Palestinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion, with investments in companies such as a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the United States and the Cayman Islands.

Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds, including Palestinian taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all controlled by Arafat, Prince said, adding that none of these dealings was made public.

Al-Jazeera said some of Arafat's businesses are in partnership with Arab politicians, former officials and entrepreneurs, including Rifaat Assad, a brother of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, and Barzan Al-Takriti, a half-brother of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Al-Takriti now is under arrest in Baghdad.

Suicide attacks return

BUS BOMBS ROCK ISRAEL 

16 killed, 80 hurt in 2 attacks
BY MATTHEW KALMAN IN RAMALLAH, WEST BANK AND BILL HUTCHINSON IN NEW YORK

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2004

PALESTINIAN terrorists killed 16 commuters in Israel yesterday in twin suicide bus bombings that could have spilled more blood had it not been for a heroic bus driver. The first bomb detonated at 3 p.m. on a No. 6 bus in the bustling southern town of Beersheba - near the West Bank city of Hebron, where the bombers are believed to have come from. As the bus exploded in flames, passengers, including a 3-year-old boy, died in their seats.

Bus driver Yaakov Cohen - traveling right behind - got a sickening feeling he was next. "I saw the first explosion and thought, 'My God, I've got to get out of here.' " He swerved around the burning bus and jolted to a stop. "I opened the doors and most of my passengers got off the bus," Cohen said. "Then I felt the explosion. I don't know why I thought to open the doors, but at least some of the people were able to escape."

As for the others, he said, "I couldn't cope with the sight. "It was terrible, terrible. . . . I don't want to describe what I saw," said Cohen, who was among 80 people injured in the attacks.

The Hamas terror group claimed responsibility for the blasts. None of the passengers who boarded Cohen's bus had looked suspicious, he said. "Believe me, I look and check. It is very hard to identify a bomber. . . . I don't know how anyone can," he said.

The suicide bombings - which ended nearly six months without such an attack in Israel and were the deadliest in nearly a year - also killed the two men, who wore explosive belts under their clothes. Earlier yesterday, Israeli soldiers at a Gaza border checkpoint nabbed a would-be suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt hidden in his underwear.

Hamas said in a statement the bus bombings were retaliation for the assassinations this year of two leaders, Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi. The last suicide bombing in Israel killed 11 people March 14 in the port city of Ashdod. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the latest violence would not derail plans to pull out of the Gaza Strip or part of the West Bank, nor would it stop the controversial security fence being built around its borders. "Israel will keep fighting terror with all its might," Sharon said.

New Jersey governor scandal

GOLAN OFF FOR VISIT - WITH FEMALE PAL

BY MATTHEW KALMAN IN RISHON LEZION, ISRAEL AND DAVE GOLDINER IN NEW YORK

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2004

GOLAN CIPEL TOOK OFF yesterday for a vacation with a female friend to escape the New Jersey gay sex scandal. Cipel, 35, gave the slip to reporters tracking the downfall of Gov. Jim McGreevey and headed to the friend's house for a little platonic R&R.

"Golan isn't here. He has a woman friend, a buddy. He went over there and he's at her place," his father, retired cabbie Avraham Cipel, told the Daily News. "He's feeling great. He's getting himself organized. Everything's okay.

"The dad and Cipel's childhood friend Guy Horesh-Gunin identified the woman by her first name, Anat. The two met when Cipel was working as a spokesman for the Israeli Consulate in New York, they said. "Anat and Golan know each other from his first work in the U.S.," said Horesh-Gunin. "They've known each other for six, seven years but there's no romantic involvement."

The getaway comes as a welcome break for Golan Cipel, a former McGreevey aide who fled to his homeland after the governor admitted he was gay and announced his resignation. McGreevey told the world he had a "consensual" relationship with a man who tried to blackmail him into keeping quiet. But Cipel insists he is straight and was sexually harassed by the governor. The Israeli man is considering a lawsuit and plans to return next month to the U.S. Horesh-Gunin said Cipel's mood was "very, very good."

He said Cipel was confident the governor's blackmail claims would be proved false. "So far, the governor's accusations against him are turning out to be untrue," said Horesh-Gunin. He said Cipel had not been contacted by the FBI but would welcome an investigation by the bureau. "Golan would be very happy about an FBI investigation," he said. "It will help him clear his name."

Meanwhile, powerful U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine said he would not pressure the governor to quit before the Nov. 15 date he set. Corzine conceded there is a "crisis of confidence" in the Garden State and said he would consider a future run for governor. "If there is an ability to try to bring some orderliness to it, some independence, a commitment to good government, and people think that I'm the one to best do that, then I'm prepared to do that," Corzine said.

Corzine, who also heads the national Democratic senate campaign committee, told McGreevey he could run in a special election that would be called if the governor stepped down before Sept. 3. But he said it would not be right to force McGreevey's hand.

I WAS CIPEL'S LOVER... ... and he's still in love with the gov, says prof

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, August 19th 2004

BY RALPH R. ORTEGA, ALISON GENDAR and NANCY DILLON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS With Ellen Tumposky, Matthew Kalman and Ellen Locker

THE MYSTERY MAN who claims to be Golan Cipel's ex-lover said yesterday that not only is the handsome Israeli gay - he's also still in love with Gov. Jim McGreevey.

"Golan says he's not gay? He could have fooled me," Dr. David Miller of Livingston, N.J., told the Daily News yesterday, as he claimed that he had a gay affair with the ex-McGreevey aide.

"We love each other. Is that a crime? We're lovers," said Miller, 51, an openly gay man and divorced father of two.

In a manic, disjointed interview, Miller said that Cipel had made a pillow-talk confession: He still carries a torch for McGreevey.

"Cipel never complained about the governor. They were in love," Miller said outside his home.

Miller also claimed to reporters that he is a CIA operative who takes pills doled out by the intelligence agency to make his skin darker so he can infiltrate unnamed groups.

He offered no mementos, letters or photos as proof of his relationship with Cipel.

He called Cipel a "gold digger" and said he believes the Israeli national was egged on by McGreevey's enemies to claim the governor sexually assaulted him.

The Daily News reported yesterday that an unidentified college professor had reported his affair to the governor's aides.

If true, Miller could wreck Cipel's claims of being a straight man victimized by McGreevey's predatory advances.

Miller - who insisted on speaking Spanish because, he said, he hates the United States - told reporters he met Cipel in Israel through family friends and that he still had a soft spot for him.

"Despite his problems, I'm going to go visit him," said Miller, shirtless and wearing purple shorts.

Cipel, who fled the spotlight for his family's home outside Tel Aviv, denied these latest stories about his sex life. "I never had any relationship with any man, so I don't know what they want from me," Cipel told a close friend yesterday who spoke to The News.

Cipel called Miller's tale "ridiculous and laughable," and said it was now open season on him - "anyone can get up now and claim he had an affair."

A statement from Cipel's media consultant characterized the story as "a blatant lie and manipulation," and part of the governor's ongoing smear campaign.

Miller, a doctor and adjunct professor at Montclair State University, said he had already given a deposition in the federal probe into McGreevey's charges that Cipel tried to blackmail him by claiming sexual harassment.

He said Cipel fled the country "because he was scared when he learned there was a federal investigation into extortion."

Sources told The News that the governor's office took Miller's allegation seriously and was having private investigators check it out.

Yesterday, McGreevey's spokesman Micah Rasmussen denied that. "We couldn't care less if Cipel has ex-boyfriends," Rasmussen said.

Sources said Miller had wanted to get his tale to the governor, and so three days ago contacted New Jersey lawyer Philip Vinick.

"It was a strange call. . . . I know nothing about him, or the truth of what he said," Vinick said.

Miller's own story is reminiscent of McGreevey's coming-out tale. The doctor said he was a happily married man with two children, when, at age 38, he acknowledged he was gay.

"One hundred thousand dollars worth of therapy later and I still don't understand," Miller said.

The legacy of Reb Shlomo's daughter

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Jun. 12, 2004

Centuries ago, the rabbis banned Jewish women from singing in public, fearing the effect their voices might have on men. Hearing Neshama Carlebach at an open-air concert in Jerusalem last week, you could understand their concern.

Like most of the women in her predominantly Orthodox Jewish audience, Carlebach is dressed demurely enough in an ankle-length skirt and high-necked, long-sleeved blouse. But her extraordinary voice, traversing a range from soaring folk melodies to throaty jazz-blues, is exactly the kind of immodest instrument the rabbis had in mind.

Her concerts have the flavour of a spiritualist revival somewhere between Woodstock and the Western Wall. The audiences on her latest tour of Israel are predominantly religious twentysomethings, many of them dressed in flowing, hippie-style robes. The audience breaks into spontaneous freestyle dance, their flailing hands reminiscent of 1960s folk festivals, but the severe head scarves of the young married women and separation between men and women seem more suited to an Orthodox synagogue service.

When the encores finally end, you realize this is no mere musical recital.

There is no backstage. Carlebach waits beside the instruments as a long, patient line forms and the audience approaches her one by one. Some ask for autographs. Some just want a hug.

Carlebach acknowledges the influence of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, but for Jewish audiences around the world, the 29-year-old is more than just a singer -- she's the reincarnation of a legend.

Her father, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, was a towering figure in modern Jewish life, a yeshiva-trained Hasidic rabbi and 1960s hippie who became a wandering minstrel and the leading Jewish songwriter of the century. Most modern Jewish music, from synagogue liturgy to youth-group dance tunes, was composed or inspired by "Reb Shlomo." An unconventional figure, in the Summer of Love in 1967, he founded the House of Love and Prayer in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, a commune that fused Jewish tradition with folk rock and Hasidic teachings, creating a new form of Jewish worship.

"Shlomo Carlebach was God's gift to the Jewish people after the Holocaust -- he created a model for post-Holocaust Jewish spirituality," says Yossi Klein Halevy, a Jewish social commentator and fellow of the Shalem Centre in Jerusalem.

"He was the most important creator of Jewish religious music of the 20th century. Jews will be singing their prayers to Shlomo melodies for centuries to come," says Klein Halevy.

Many of his tunes have become standards, from the anthemic Am YisraelChai (The People of Israel Live) to the haunting melody for the biblical verse Veshomru (They Shall Observe), which welcomes the Sabbath on a Friday evening.

Some of Neshama's earliest memories are of accompanying her father to perform in strange places.

"I was with my father when he would sing in prisons and, by the time he was finished, the prisoners were dancing with the guards -- you didn't even know who was who," she says.

Neshama, his eldest daughter, grew up in Toronto and studied drama at Ryerson University before taking a degree in humanities from York University. She aspired to be a Broadway actress until her father's death in 1994 at age 69 thrust her into the limelight.

Two weeks before he died, they finished recording an album together. There were a string of concert dates left to fill. Even as the family sat in mourning, she was asked whether she would take his place, and she agreed.

"I was catapulted without even realizing what was happening with my life into this new business, into this new life," she says.

"I'm so grateful. Not only did it give me an opportunity to really mourn my father in a beautiful, expressive and incredible way, but it really gave me an opportunity to find out what my true mission was in this world -- and this was it.

"My mission is very similar to his -- to bring peace and love. I'm very innocently, naively optimistic. Music speaks to the soul like nothing else.

"When you're capable of singing and coming together in song, the world can change."

"There are all these barriers we put up around ourselves, and somehow when you have a song, the song just breaks down all the walls," she says.

Her music is interspersed with stories about her father, related in language peppered with modern Yiddishisms. He existed, she says, on a diet of "pep pills and coffee," constantly in demand by acolytes and hangers-on and rarely at home. The constant touring, the peace and love he preached to his audiences and his "openness with women" as Neshama describes it, got him into trouble with the Orthodox and destroyed his marriage. Her parents separated when she was 5, although she says they remained in love. She says they were planning to reunite when he died.

Neshama is passionate about the need to give women a voice in modern Jewish life, which is why she ignores the rabbinical prohibition on singing in public.

"The world is changing and women need to have a place. When they can sing, when they have a voice, they feel like they have a place," she says.

Still, many Orthodox women prefer her to perform without men around and half of her concerts are women-only.

"I do them mostly because a lot of women just feel more comfortable that way," she says. "There's always a moment or two when there's this incredible singing, all the women together. You have this incredible harmony and even silence.

"There's always fidgeting when there's men around," she says. "Women have such a spiritual depth and talent within the music, and connection that you just don't have with men. I do love men, but there's always a different quality that happens when it's only women."

She married last August and now lives in New York, but a decade after her father's death, she is constantly touring and about to release a sixth CD with her keyboard player and musical director David Morgan. Tomorrow, she plays her first public performance in Vancouver, at the Vancouver Rowing Club.

Some people criticize Neshama for coasting on her father's coattails when she clearly has the talent to do much more. She says she has been recording a mainstream album with Morgan, 35, who studied jazz in New Orleans with Ellis Marsalis.

Morgan says they are composing more of their own material and he has encouraged Carlebach to broaden her repertoire, but Shlomo continues to cast a long shadow.

"There's two audiences out there," says Morgan. "There are people who miss Shlomo so much they just want him back and they feel like Neshama should be carrying on his legacy and just doing his music. Then there's people who feel like we should be doing more of our own things. For us, it's somewhere in the middle. We would always do his music, but in our own way. If Jakob Dylan only did his dad's music all the time, people would think he's pathetic."

Neshama Carlebach performs for the Or Shalom Community at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Vancouver Rowing Club in Stanley Park (604-872-1614); and in Hamilton on June 21, a show for women only at the Adas Israel Congregation (905-528-0039).

Minister takes cover from firing

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Saturday, Jun. 05, 2004

Jerusalem was transformed into the setting for a real-life political "Where's Waldo?" yesterday as two right-wing cabinet ministers took evasive action in an effort to sabotage Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to dismiss them.

Mr. Sharon sent letters of dismissal to Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon of the right-wing National Union Party in an effort make sure his proposal to withdraw from the Gaza Strip would pass a cabinet vote planned for tomorrow. Both ministers are fiercely opposed to the plan.

Mr. Elon went into hiding to evade the letter of dismissal, which only takes effect 48 hours after it is delivered to him personally, and so complicates the cabinet vote.

"By the end of 2005 there will be no Jew in Gaza," Mr. Sharon told supporters this week. "I plan to uphold my commitments and pass the decision Sunday."

The dismissal of the two ministers would leave a cabinet majority in favour of Mr. Sharon's pullout plan, but puts his coalition government at risk of collapse.

He invited the two National Union ministers to his office at 9 a.m. yesterday to receive the dismissal letters, but they refused to attend. Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon dispatched envoys to their homes, but they weren't there.

Messengers caught up with Mr. Lieberman as he exercised in a gym, but Mr. Elon, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Bet El near Ramallah, was in hiding last night.

Speaking to Israel Radio yesterday by telephone, Mr. Elon vowed to avoid being served with the letter and threatened to attend tomorrow's cabinet meeting and vote against the plan.

He described Mr. Sharon's moves as undemocratic and a step "that disgraces the government and efforts at maintaining a legitimate law-abiding government." He added that Mr. Sharon had informed him by phone that he was fired, but that wasn't good enough.

Mr. Sharon's decision to get tough with opponents within the cabinet of his coalition government followed a week of fruitless talks with his main Likud rival, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Likud hard-liners aimed at finding a compromise formula for the Gaza withdrawal plan.

Mr. Sharon wants to remove all 7,500 Israeli settlers and the hundreds of soldiers guarding them from the Gaza Strip by the end of next year and says he will push ahead although members of his own party voted against the plan last month.

"He feels confident enough to push this thing to the breaking point," said Mark Heller of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. "It's an indication of Sharon's determination to push through and let the chips fall where they may."

The Prime Minister has taken a major risk in firing the two ministers. Their departure from the cabinet leaves him with only 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Either the firings or a cabinet vote in favour of the pullout plan could lead to the departure of the National Religious Party, which has six seats, causing the collapse of Mr. Sharon's coalition government.

But his determination to withdraw from Gaza could win the support of Shimon Peres's Labour opposition, which might even join a national unity government to get the job done.

A Gaza pullout would be hugely popular with the wider Israeli public. A poll published yesterday by Haaretz newspaper showed 60 per cent in favour and only 34 per cent opposed.

There is also talk of Mr. Sharon calling a general election and joining Mr. Peres in a new, broad-based centre party that could dominate Israeli politics and rescue the country from years of instability caused by dependence on tiny fringe parties.

After initial skepticism, Palestinian and Arab leaders are also warming to the pullout idea. Last week, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak signalled for the first time that Egypt would be willing to guarantee security in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli withdrawal. Until now, Mr. Mubarak has been careful not to get directly involved in the murky and dangerous world of Gaza's warring militias.

Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan said he would be pleased to take control of any area vacated by Israel. After initial doubts, Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia has adopted the same policy.

Bodyguards assigned to Jerusalem mayor after he allows gay pride parade

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — Special to the Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Jun. 04, 2004

Israel's secret service assigned two bodyguards to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski yesterday after ultrareligious groups threatened him for permitting the city's Gay Pride march to go ahead.

At the same time, event organizers accused Mr. Lupolianski, the city's first ultra-Orthodox Jewish mayor, of undermining the event by not giving it the level of municipal support it has enjoyed in the past.

About 3,000 homosexual, lesbian and bisexual Israelis, some in army uniform and others in full drag, marched through the city centre to a lively party in a park, under a banner proclaiming "Love Without Borders."

"This is exactly the message this city needs: that we can have a pluralistic society in which all people can co-exist," said Noa Sattath, head of Open House, the city's gay and lesbian centre, which organized the third annual event.

A small group of protesters heckled the parade-goers, while some ultraorthodox Jewish leaders condemned the event as "ugly" and unsuitable for the holy city.

Dozens of armed police escorted the marchers, who carried rainbow banners and large clusters of balloons. Many participants wore large rabbit ears, a response to remarks by David Basri, a well-known Kabbalistic rabbi, who has derided gays as "subhuman" and said they would be reincarnated as rabbits.

One Israeli soldier in full uniform, who gave her name as Reuma, said she was not gay but wanted to add her support to the marchers.

"Kudos to them," she said. "I'm very proud to support them and very pleased they want to express their identity in this way."

Sharon Omer, a 27-year-old software programmer from Tel Aviv, said it is difficult to be gay in Jerusalem because of the city's "heavy religious presence."

"In Tel Aviv people pay no notice if gay people walk hand in hand or kiss in public, but Jerusalem is such a conservative city," said Ms. Omer.

Still, Jerusalem is planning to host the World Pride international gathering next summer.

Israel seeks return of body parts

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, May 12, 2004

The Israeli Red Cross was at the centre of a grim tug of war over the body parts of six soldiers last night after Palestinian forces destroyed an Israeli armoured personnel carrier in Gaza City, then paraded the dismembered remains before the cameras.

"We possess the remains of your bodies that were thrown into the streets of Gaza. We have our demands to hand them over to the Zionist occupier," said a joint statement from Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which claimed the operation along with members of Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described the militants as "cruel, inhuman."

The skirmish began before daybreak, when Israeli troops and tanks backed by helicopter gun ships stormed into the Zaitoun neighbourhood on the southern outskirts of Gaza City for what the army said was an operation to destroy two large workshops used to build rockets launched against Israeli settlements.

Eight Palestinians were killed, and more than 100 others were wounded.

The soldiers were blown to pieces shortly after 6 a.m., when Hamas forces exploded a 45-kilogram bomb underneath their vehicle as they headed back to Israel. The blast set off explosives the soldiers were carrying inside the vehicle to destroy the workshops.

Soldiers involved in the mission said the force of the blast destroyed the vehicle and sent parts of bodies flying over a 300-metre radius. They tried to seal off the area and recover the bodies under fire from Palestinian forces, but it proved impossible.

The Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a video of two masked Islamic Jihad activists displaying what they said was the head of an Israeli soldier on a table. The Palestinian Authority tried to ban broadcast of the images and called on the militant groups to return the soldiers' remains unconditionally. But officials also criticized the operation that started the fighting.

"We condemn with the strongest possible terms the Israeli military escalation," cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said. "The escalation is only a part of Israel's campaign to continue the path of violence and confrontation."

Israelis reeled in horror at the result of the ambush, the army's worst losses in more than a year. In Judaism and Islam, the failure to bury any part of a body is considered a desecration.

"Today we received a painful reminder of the heavy price we are paying in the struggle to defend our country and the security of our citizens," Mr. Sharon told the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

"We are fighting a cruel, inhuman enemy, and we won't stop fighting it and hurting it no matter where it hides."

The government said it refused to negotiate for the return of the body parts, but the Red Cross confirmed that it had been asked to assist in having the remains returned.

"We are in contact with all the Palestinian groups in an effort to recover the remains," Israeli Red Cross spokesman Uriel Massad said. "I hope this will be settled. There is an obligation to respect the bodies of soldiers."

Late last night, Israeli troops were still engaged in house-to-house searches for the body parts. Major-General Dan Harel said his troops would remain in Gaza City until the remains were recovered.

Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested at an emergency meeting of the Israeli security cabinet that water and electricity supplies to Gaza be cut until the remains were returned.

Israeli forces later launched a missile strike into another part of the city. Hamas said its militants were targeted but escaped unhurt. Medics said an 18-year-old bystander was killed and five people were wounded.

Israeli military officials noted that the earlier operation had been conducted using ground forces instead of missiles in order to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties.

Mr. Sharon is trying to push through a plan to withdraw all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, but his governing Likud Party rejected the move in a vote last week.

Commentators pointed yesterday to the "Lebanonization" of the resistance to the Israeli army in Gaza, likening the growing wave of Palestinian attacks to the attacks of Hezbollah against Israeli troops in south Lebanon before Israel's withdrawal in 2000.

"The disaster in Gaza will accelerate Israel's disengagement from the Palestinians," Israeli analyst Amos Harel said.

Teen charged with recruiting suicide bombers

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, May 05, 2004

He is only 15, an age at which most boys are out playing soccer after school or studying for exams. But according to charges filed in an Israeli military court yesterday, Nasser Awartani has spent the past year busying himself with more deadly matters.

The Nablus student was charged in an Israeli military court yesterday with recruiting teenagers to become suicide bombers for militant groups, the first time such charges have been levelled against a Palestinian youth.

Israel's military court in the northern West Bank charged Nasser with 12 counts, including attempted murder and membership in a militant group. Although hundreds of Israelis have been killed in suicide attacks, none of the Israeli deaths were attributed to Nasser in the indictment.

An Israeli army spokesman alleged that Nasser was involved in "recruiting, preparing and dispatching young suicide bombers in order to carry out terrorist attacks." His job involved ferrying potential bombers to initial meetings with militants and helping them get ready for attacks.

One of his alleged recruits was Hussam Abdo, the 16-year-old whose picture was flashed around the world as he struggled to remove a suicide bomb at an Israeli checkpoint in March.

Another of the suicide bombers Nasser allegedly recruited was 16-year-old Sabi Abu Saud, who blew himself up at an army checkpoint near Tulkarm last November, injuring several soldiers.

Nasser's mother, Ihlas, said her son could not be guilty because he spent all his time at home. "They want to blame someone, so they have chosen my son," she said.

But Israeli intelligence, who raided the teenager's home and arrested him on March 25, said he arranged suicide attacks for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and also for the squads of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

According to court documents, Nasser was recruited into al-Aqsa toward the end of last year by two local leaders of the underground group. At first, he began by putting up posters of Palestinian "martyrs" who died while attacking Israeli targets, but then learned how to build homemade guns, the indictment said. In February, he and his alleged comrades in al-Aqsa were photographed with an M16 assault rifle.

Last October, he was allegedly approached by two al-Aqsa leaders and asked to carry out a suicide bombing. He refused, but agreed to help them find other youths, the indictment said.

On March 22, Nasser approached some of Hussam Abdo's classmates and asked them if they could recommend a boy for a suicide attack. They suggested Hussam. On March 24, Hussam was allegedly picked up in central Nablus, blindfolded, and driven to a deserted house where an al-Aqsa bombmaker gave him an explosive harness ready for use. The boy was photographed and wrote out a farewell message to his parents. He was given a box of eggs to carry and driven to the Harawa checkpoint south of Nablus. There, he was spotted by Israeli soldiers, who instructed him how to remove the bomb harness as he stood shaking with terror, saying he didn't want to die. Hussam was recently charged with attempted murder.

Sharon vows to press on with Gaza pullout

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM — Special to the Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday brushed aside suggestions he might resign after the humiliating rejection of his Gaza withdrawal plan by his own Likud Party, and vowed to push ahead with the controversial scheme, perhaps in modified form.

"I want to say in the clearest fashion there will be another plan," he told a meeting of Likud lawmakers.

As the Prime Minister embarked on a series of consultations on whether and how to amend the plan, he made it clear he has no intention of stepping down. "I intend to continue leading the state of Israel to the best of my understanding, conscience and public duty. This is not an easy task. However, I intend to carry it through."

At the same time, Israeli opponents of the pullout celebrated yesterday by laying the cornerstone of a new residence in a Gaza settlement and moving four Jewish families into a predominantly Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.

Mr. Sharon's plan envisioned an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, home to 7,500 Jewish settlers in 21 settlements, and the evacuation of four small settlements in the West Bank by the end of 2005. But members of Likud, a traditionally pro-settler party, disagreed. They voted against the plan 60 per cent to 40 per cent in a nonbinding referendum on Sunday. But only about half of Likud's 190,000 members voted.

Opposition leader Shimon Peres said it was "unacceptable" for Likud members, who make up less than 2 per cent of the Israeli population, to determine the future of the country. He called for early elections, amid rumours that Mr. Sharon has already offered him a return to the coveted foreign-affairs portfolio in a broad-based national unity government.

Israeli officials suggested the original withdrawal plan, which was popular with Israelis and had U.S. backing, would be slightly scaled down and the new version would not be put to a Likud vote.

"I intend to consult my ministers, the Likud faction and other Knesset factions in order to examine the implications and the steps we intend to take," Mr. Sharon told Likud members of the Knesset, or parliament.

And in what appeared to be a hint that he might go it alone without the right wing of his party, or perhaps call new elections, Mr. Sharon warned: "Israel elected us to find a way to tranquillity, security and peace and promoting Israel's economy. And we intend to do this. There is no other reason for us to be here in the Knesset."

There were hints yesterday from the Prime Minister's circle that he will present the disengagement plan directly to the Israeli people, who polls indicate are overwhelmingly in favour of Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Gerald Steinberg, a political analyst at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, said Mr. Sharon might "try and detour around the Likud, basically abandoning his own party, his own core constituency and try to build a centrist Israeli political party or some sort of consensus-based new bloc."

In April, U.S. President George W. Bush threw his support behind the disengagement plan, provoking widespread Arab anger. Yesterday, the White House said it will examine options with Mr. Sharon, calling his disengagement plan "a courageous and important step towards peace."

While some U.S. commentators said the Likud rejection of the plan has undermined Mr. Bush's credibility in the Middle East, Professor Steinberg disagreed.

"It's an embarrassment for Sharon in his future dealings with the White House because he was not able to deliver on that deal, but for the U.S. government in the big picture this is not a major issue," he said.

In Gaza overnight, an Israeli attack helicopter fired a missile at a group of Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp, wounding at least 12, three critically, residents said. Hours earlier, in a separate incident in the West Bank, Israeli troops took up positions around Palestinian president Yasser Arafat's office building in the city of Ramallah, witnesses told Associated Press. Military officials said soldiers were arresting suspects, but said the operation was not linked to Mr. Arafat.