Big Demonstration in Tel Aviv Against Military Escalation
The demonstration was called by the anti-settler Peace Now movement under the heading of "No to Useless War," and was held in front of the Israeli Defense Ministry.
It started with a candle-lit procession from the Tel Aviv square where former Zionist prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed in November 1995 by a Jew over his peace policy toward the Palestinians.
"We can today no longer continue the policy of hiding our heads in the sand. Contrary to right wing propaganda, there is an alternative to war ..." said Moria Shlomot, an official from the Peace Now movement.
Former labor minister Yossi Beilin and left-wing deputy Yossi Sarid were among those taking part in what was described as the largest demonstration since the crushing defeat of former Labor prime minister Ehud Barak in February to current right-wing hardliner Ariel Sharon.
An Israeli helicopter rocket attack killed a member of the Palestinian movement Hamas in the West Bank town of Tul Karem, north of Nablus, witnesses told AFP.
The slain activist, identified as 20-year-old Amer Hudire, was killed when the helicopter fired two shells at his car, the witnesses said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo warned Sunday that angry Palestinians will step up their campaign of violence against Israel in response to their enemy's assassination policy.
Abed Rabbo said Palestinians would retaliate for recent attacks on high-profile Palestinian leaders and said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would be responsible for the upsurge in violence.
"We feel that the Israeli assassinations will lead to some retaliation and the retaliation is the responsibility of the Israeli government and Sharon personally," Abed Rabbo told reporters at the Palestine media center in Ramallah.
"Israel's war crimes will invite retaliation and any retaliation is the responsibility of Israel's government. It's not the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority."
There were a series of other violent incidents following an Israeli rocket attack Saturday on a three-car convoy in Ramallah which was supposed to be carrying West Bank Fatah chief Marwan Barghuti.
Barghuti escaped the attack but one of his chief aides, Mohanad abu Halawa, was burnt and hospitalized.
Israeli military authorities claimed they were trying to kill Abu Halawa, although Palestinian officials said Barghuti was the target.
The attack on Barghuti's convoy came only four days after an Israeli helicopter attacked the offices of Islamic group Hamas in the West Bank town of Nablus, killing six Hamas members and two boys.
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Meanwhile, hundreds of Muslims in London held an anti-Zionist demonstration after the weekly congregational Friday prayers.
The Muslims marched toward the U.S. Embassy in London, asking for international condemnation of the Zionist atrocities.
The mob, chanting anti-U.S. and anti-Zionist slogans, also denounced Washington as the main supporter of the Zionist regime and the main cause for the bold acts of the Zionists in the occupied territories.
In the meantime, another a report of the Central News Bureau (CNB) from the occupied lands said that the Ezzedin Qessam branch of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction destroyed an Israeli tank on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Cyprus has voiced concern over the development of military ties between Turkey and Israel.
Talking to the London-based Arabic-language daily ***Al-Hayat***, the Cypriot foreign minister said that his country is concerned about the cooperation of Turkey and Israel.
He told the daily that the region needs peace more than a gendarme and any kind of imbalance of power in the region concerned Cyprus.
He called what the Zionists are doing in the occupied lands "catastrophic." Meanwhile, the Turkish people have also voiced their anger about the upcoming visit of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Ankara, scheduled for August 8.