Radio Islam´s News Agency
He had faked his kidnapping...
JERUSALEM, 21-SEP-97 (Reuter) - An Israeli found nine days ago tied up in an abandoned building said on Sunday he had faked his kidnapping during U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to unite the Israeli people, police said.
Yaacov Schwartz, 63, was found by firefighters on September 12 at an abandoned building in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. He was bound, wearing an Arab headdress, and had a psalm book on his chest.
``According to him he did it according to an instruction he received -- not from any people but from his belief -- to create some sort of act in the wake of the catastrophes that happened to Israel, the wave of attacks...in order to unite the people around one goal,'' Moshe Karadi, the officer in charge of the investigation, told Israel's Channel Two television.
Israel conducted a massive manhunt for Schwartz who was missing for two days, fearing he had been kidnapped by Islamic militants who wanted to make their mark during Albright's debut visit to the region to salvage peace moves.
Albright herself had persuaded Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's police to join Israel's search for Schwartz, whose car was found abandoned in southern Israel near the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip.
Karadi said Schwartz told police he abandoned his car and spent the two days in a factory he owned in Tel Aviv before going to the abandoned building in Ashkelon.
Firefighters found him after they answered a call saying there was a fire in the building.
Karadi said police were still investigating the incident to find out if other people were involved in faking the kidnapping. He said that Schwartz maintained he acted alone.
Israel's Channel One television said that Schwartz was known to have extreme right-wing sympathies.
Albright's visit to the region came on the heels of the second of two attacks Israel pegs to Islamic militant suicide bombers that have killed 20 Israelis since July 30.
Karadi, asked if Schwartz would now stand trial, said that would be up to the state attorney.
Palestinian Journalist...
HEBRON, West Bank 20-SEP-1997 (AP) An Israeli soldier knocked down a Palestinian journalist attempting to report on Jewish-Palestinian tensions, and ordered him to leave a Jewish enclave because he was an Arab.
The incident happened Friday in the divided West Bank city of Hebron, where Israeli forces guard about 500 Jewish settlers surrounded by more than 130,000 Arabs.
Nasser Shiyoukhi, a reporter for The Associated Press, arrived at Avraham Avinu, one of the small Jewish enclaves in downtown Hebron, with Rick Bowmer of the AP and David Mizrahi of Agence France Presse.
The enclave has been the scene of frequent clashes and disturbances.
The soldier, who was on guard at the Avraham Avinu parking lot, shouted at Mizrahi, ordering him not to park there "because you've got an Arab in the car," Mizrahi and Shiyoukhi said.
Shiyouki showed the soldier his Israeli government press card and said "I am a journalist. I have the right to be here. You are practicing discrimination."
The soldier, who was armed, replied, "You are an Arab," pushed him roughly and punched him on the right ear, knocking him down, Shiyoukhi and Mizrahi said.
Israeli border police, who were also on guard at the lot, took Shiyoukhi to a nearby police station, where he filed a complaint.
The soldier also filed a complaint accusing Shiyoukhi of striking him. All three journalists denied this.
The army spokesman refused to comment on the incident while it is under investigation.
Rounded up dozens of Palestinians...
NABLUS, West Bank,21-SEP-1997 (Reuters) - The Israeli army said on Sunday it had rounded up dozens of Palestinians in villages in the northern West Bank in a mass arrest campaign personally directed by the military commander of the West Bank.
ISRAELI MILITARY CENSORS MADE DELETIONS FROM THIS REPORT.
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``Security forces last night conducted a wide-ranging operation...during which they arrested tens of Palestinians who are now being interrogated. The operation was conducted as part of activities to deter and prevent terror,'' an army spokesman said.
``Central Commander Major-General Uzi Dayan directed the operation,'' the spokesman said.
Witnesses said the army imposed a curfew on one village at dawn, gathered all male residents over the age of 16 at a local school and disconnected all the village telephones.
``We have not seen anything like this in our village since 1967,'' a village resident who gave his name only as Kaysar told Reuters.
``They gathered tens of men over the age of 16 in one school and the army brought medical teams with them. They stormed the houses in the village and took video pictures after searching each house. Apparently they are looking for someone,'' he said.
Israel arrested scores of Palestinians belonging to the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups following suicide bombings in Jerusalem on July 30 and September 4 which killed 20 Israelis.
The identities of the five bombers in the two attacks and the organisation that stood behind them remain unknown. Leaflets in the name of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks but doubt was cast on their authenticity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters travelling with him in Austria on Sunday that Israel was sure the attackers had not come from abroad, as had been said in some reports.
``On that issue I can again confirm, 100 percent, that the suicide bombers that committed the last two attacks came from the area of Yesha and did not come from abroad,'' Netanyahu said.
The remarks were broadcast on Israel Radio. ``Yesha'' is the Hebrew acronym for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though sometimes Israelis intend only the West Bank when they use the term. It was unclear what Netanyahu intended. In the remarks broadcast he did not elaborate.
Israel has handed most of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank to Palestinian rule under interim peace deals. Netanyahu did not say if the bombers came from Israeli or Palestinian controlled areas.
Fouad doesn't live here anymore...
By Danny Gur-arieh
JERUSALEM, 21-SEP-1997 (Reuters) - Fouad Hadieh doesn't live here anymore.
That was what Israeli police told dozens of Palestinians including Hadieh himself when the 48-year-old resident of Arab East Jerusalem tried on Sunday to enter what he said was his home in the Ras al-Amoud neighbourhood after a trip abroad.
Jewish settlers now live there. ``I will enter the house by force. It is my house and all my belongings are inside,'' said Hadieh, charging that Jews inside were squatters.
Hadieh decided later to file a formal complaint against the settlers whose benefactor, U.S. Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz, says he bought the land from two Jewish religious groups, insisting they were the rightful owners.
Jewish families took over the house last Sunday. They were replaced on Thursday by 10 Jewish seminary students under a deal cut between Moskowitz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in hopes of defusing Middle East tensions ignited by the takeover.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has called the deal a ``farce.''
The contradictory ownership claims reflect the convoluted history of an area which in the last century has known Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Israeli rule.
Moskowitz's lawyer Eitan Geva said Jewish groups bought the land in the 1800s but lost control of it when East Jerusalem came under Jordanian rule in 1948.
At the time, Jordanian officials handed the area to the el-Ghoul family, longtime residents of Ras al-Amoud, said Geva.
When Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, much of the land once owned by Jews became disputed property and in 1984 an Israeli court ruled the area in Ras al-Amoud belonged to its original Jewish owners.
Hadieh said he had been living in the building with his wife and children since 1988 under an agreement with the al-Ghoul family. He said he was approached by settlers several years ago but never agreed to leave.
``He's been living there illegally since the court ruled the buildings belonged to Jews. He doesn't have any rights there,'' Geva told Reuters.
But other lawyers said Hadieh may have gained squatter's rights by living in the apartment for so long and could have a case if he never consented to the settlers' entry.
``It was decided that his attorney will file a complaint tomorrow with police for squatting (by settlers) and police will look into the issue,'' said a police spokesman after officers met with Palestinians in the neighbourhood.
Palestinians say Jewish settlement activity pre-empts peace talks on the final status of the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem in 1967 after the war in a move unrecognised by the international community, insists Jews have the right to settle anywhere in Jerusalem.
JEWISH BILLIONAIRE...
JERUSALEM (21-SEP-1997) XINHUA - A Palestinian owner of one of the two disputed buildings occupied by Jews in East Jerusalem's Ras Amud Arab neighborhood today denied selling it to American billionaire Irving Moscowitz.
Fuad Hadieh, who returned from Romania Saturday, said he had never sold the house to Moscowitz and he had documents to prove his claim.
Accompanied by Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Minister of Islamic Waqf Hassan Tahboub, Jerusalem's Mufti Ikramah Sabri and others, Hadieh tried to enter the main building, but they were prevented by Israeli police who clubbed them.
When 15 Jewish settlers took over the two buildings in Ras Amud last Sunday, they claimed that the Palestinians living there were paid to evacuate the houses. Moscowitz said he also intended to build 70 housing units in Ras Amud to create a Jewish settlement.
In his comments, Hadieh said the documents possessed by the settlers were forged because he had never signed anything to sell the house.
Upon the police's advice, Hadieh is considering petitioning to Israel's High Court of Justice to retake the house. He would be likely to file the petition Monday.
The takeover of the two buildings in East Jerusalem has sparked strong protests from the Palestinian side and Arab countries which warned against the collapse of the peace process if the settlers would remain there.
Under a compromise agreement reached between representatives of the government and settlers aimed at calming the situation, the settlers evacuated the houses Thursday night to be replaced by religious Jews who will open a seminar there.
The PNA has denounced the deal as a "trick" aimed at maintaining the Jewish presence in the disputed Arab East Jerusalem occupied by Israel since the 1967 war.
Meanwhile, Palestinian and Israeli peace activists continued their daily protests near the site which was under the watchful eyes of a large presence of Israeli police. The joint peace movement Peace Now has set up a protest tent near the disputed houses, demanding the small group of fanatic Jews evacuate the Arab neighborhood to save the peace process.
Muslim Militant Killed in Lebanon
TRIPOLI, Lebanon 21-SEP-1997 (Reuters) - One person was killed and three wounded Sunday after security forces fired on militants trying to stop them closing down a television station run by Muslim fundamentalists, security sources said.
The sources said security forces fired on members of the al-Tawheed movement who had begun gathering outside the al-Hilal television station Saturday.
One source said the security forces opened fire after Muslim fundamentalists hurled rocks at them.
After the shootings, security forces fired tear gas at al-Tawheed members and took control of the television station building.
They then closed down al-Hilal and al-Tawheed's Sawt al-Haq radio station.
The sources said negotiations had begun between with the al-Tawheed Muslim fundamentalist movement but that the situation was still tense.
Trouble began Saturday after police sealed off the unlicensed al-Hilal television station in the northern city of Tripoli.
Hundreds of al-Tawheed members and their supporters gathered, vowing to prevent the closure of the station.
The move against the al-Hilal television station is part of a government crackdown on unlicensed private television and radio channels.
Late last year, a law was implemented under which the government ordered dozens of Lebanon's many private radio and television stations to close and licensed only a handful of stations, mostly owned by government officials.
Held for Dealing with Israel
BEIRUT, 20-SEP-1997 (Reuters) - Two employees of a Christian television station based in Israeli-occupied south Lebanon who were arrested by the Lebanese army are being held for allegedly dealing with Israel, security sources said on Saturday.
On Friday, The U.S. owners of the station, Middle East Television (METV), said the two -- journalist Shakeeb Aghaa and electrical engineer Butros Khoury -- were stopped at an army checkpoint in the south, questioned, blindfolded and taken to a Ministry of Defence prison in east Beirut.
The security sources said the men are under investigation for dealing with Israel, which is prohibited in Lebanon. They declined to elaborate on the case.
METV is owned by the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) of Virginia Beach, Virginia. It transmits from Marjayoun, which is also the headquarters of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army (SLA) and lies in an area outside Lebanese government control.
CBN said on Friday that neither of the men had ever done anything against the Lebanese government.
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