As the international community scrambles to develop plans for inserting an observer force in the disputed territories, the US-led fact-finding committee came and went with little fanfare, leading many in Israel to wonder if the committee will really help reduce the Palestinian violence.
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz confirmed Tuesday that “significant” indirect contacts have been made with Hizb’Allah through German mediators over a prisoner exchange for three kidnapped Israeli soldiers, but played down reports of an imminent deal.
With Israel now definitely heading into a campaign season, rumors are flying again that Prime Minister Ehud Barak is conducting secret negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in hopes of reaching an election-eve peace deal that will save his political career.
Not even heavy rains were able to dampen the Palestinian uprising, as Tuesday saw widespread terrorist shootings against Israeli targets and today was marked by an intense nine-hour gun battle in southern Gaza.
Friends and even foes of former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are smoothing the way for him to timely mount a challenge against current premier Ehud Barak in a special election in early February. The remaining quandry, however, is whether the Knesset also will dissolve itself and allow voters to truly reflect the huge rightward shift in Israeli public opinion caused by Camp David and the Palestinian uprising.
A Palestinian womens’ group has demanded that the Palestinian Authority stop using children as cannon fodder in its intifada against Israel.
After Lebanese reports of an impending deal between Israel and Hizb’Allah terrorists to exchange captives and detainees, Israeli security sources have confirmed that Jerusalem is continuing to try various channels in an effort to find a solution.
Ever since the heavy death toll in the Palestinian uprising on Friday, there have been several incidents of foiled bombings and narrowly averted disasters over the weekend, including one involving Israel’s Chief Rabbi.
Upon hearing of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s sudden resignation over the weekend, Palestinian officials gloated that the renewed intifada had brought him down, but also lamented over the resulting delay caused by new elections.
AMBON, Indonesia (Compass) — “It is disappointing that the suffering of the Christians due to the conflict in the Malukus has been insufficiently exposed in various reports on a national and international level,” stated the U.S. Consul General Robert Pollard.
JAYAPURA, Irian Jaya, November 30 (Compass) — A smouldering civil unrest that has troubled the eastern Indonesian province of Irian Jaya for years threatens once again to harm Christians and others caught in the war between a growing independence movement and the Jakarta government.
INDONESIA – (Open Doors, July 9, 2001) – Christian leaders in Tentena, in Indonesia’s central Sulawesi province, pleaded with Open Doors to “be our voice†in the face of increased atrocities being perpetrated against them in Poso district, known as a “second Ambon.â€
SPICE ISLANDS, INDONESIA (March 21, 2000) — An urgent plea for prayer for the Christians of Indonesia has come out of that nation from a recent visitor who has just returned from the Spice Islands.
AMBON CITY, Indonesia (BP)–The mournful horn echoes in the still air at 4 a.m. The call to prayer resounds off bullet-pocked walls and empty buildings. The Christian remnant in this Indonesian village awakens to cry out to God for peace.
LONDON (Compass) — Maluku’s head of police admitted that authorities cannot dislodge the hundreds of Muslim jihad fighters scattered throughout eastern Indonesia’s Maluku province and who have escalated the inter-religious conflict as Christmas approaches. More than 100 Christians were reported killed in November fighting.
MANADO, Indonesia (Compass) — “There are no Christians left in Ternate,” said George Saselah, who had left his farm there to join his wife and newborn daughter in a refugee camp in Manado, on Indonesia’s North Sulawesi island.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (BP)–Twenty-three Christians were massacred in Indonesia as they fled from their village in late July and early August, The Hindustan Times of India has reported. The report from Indonesia was relayed to U.S. media via Crosswalk.com, an Internet news and information site.
In a new twist to the violence against Christians in eastern Indonesia’s Maluku Islands, Muslim Jihad fighters dressed like Japanese “ninjas” have begun targeting individuals under cover of darkness.
Work is underway to resettle Indonesian Christians rescued from violence that continues in this country’s Molucca Islands, while thousands more remain to be rescued.
(CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.)-Responding to urgent pleas for help, Christian Aid has joined a campaign to raise $1.2 million to rescue Christians feared targeted for conversion or extermination by Muslim jihad warriors in Indonesia.