Refugees Israel

On a rain-lashed mountaintop near Israel's northern border, the people of this vanished Arab village cling to its sole surviving building--a small, square church--and stubbornly insist that the government right a half-century-old wrong. They retell the tale they have repeated endlessly over decades to anyone who will listen. "On Oct. 28, 1948, the Israeli army came into our village, and we welcomed them," recalled Aouni Sbeit, 65, a poet who was 17 when soldiers of the new Jewish state arrived.

TEL AVIV - The first Molotov cocktail ignited a backyard fence, just a couple of feet from where three Eritrean refugees were sleeping outdoors on makeshift beds of wood planks atop old TV sets. One man burned his arm trying to extinguish the flames with a blanket. Moments later, a second firebomb was tossed through an open air vent into the adjacent apartment, where another family of African asylum-seekers was sleeping. It exploded in the shower without causing injury. The post-midnight attacks last month by unknown assailants continued across Tel Aviv's dilapidated Shapira neighborhood, striking another refugee house and a kindergarten catering to African children.

In another demonstration of friction between Israel and the Bush Administration, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's government said Wednesday that it will boycott U.S.-sponsored conferences on Middle East economic development and refugee problems next week because Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be allowed to take part. "We have made our position clear that if Palestinian representatives from outside the territories . . .

The Jewish Yemenite refugees aboard flights to Israel in 1949 felt they were living the words of Isaiah's biblical prophecy, traveling by eagle to their homeland. Unknown to many, though, their pilot was an American of Irish and British descent, raised an Episcopalian in Oregon. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, reportedly called Robert F. Maguire Jr., the chief pilot of Operation Magic Carpet, their "Irish Moses."

After he heard the news of Washington's willingness to talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization, Jamal, a young Palestinian refugee who spends his days painting portraits of "martyrs" to the cause of independence, realized with a start that in one way it was the end of a dream. "I woke up from bed and it came to me. I would have to give up the idea of going back to my family's home village in Israel. This was always at the center of my family's view of the future. We would go back.

Israeli troops fatally shot a Palestinian teen-ager and wounded at least 15 other Arabs in clashes in the occupied territories. The army ordered curfews in three West Bank towns and barred reporters from Nablus, the West Bank's largest city, in response to the unrest. The 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the village of Beit Furik, about 4 miles east of Nablus, when troops opened fire on demonstrators who erected stone barricades and hurled rocks and bottles at soldiers, the army said.

Israeli officials said Tuesday that a top British diplomat had fallen for Arab propaganda by criticizing as "an affront to civilized values" conditions at a Palestinian refugee camp he toured in the occupied Gaza Strip. Avi Pazner, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, said Tuesday that British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs David Mellor was ill-informed.

The senior Israeli official in charge of administering the occupied West Bank was reported Tuesday to have resigned his post, prompting speculation that there have been differences over policy toward the area's Arab residents. Brig. Gen. Ephraim Sneh, 44, announced his intention to step down as head of civil administration for the West Bank after serving in the job for two years and three months, according to Israel army radio.

The Israeli army said Friday that it has jailed 22 soldiers who rampaged through a U.N. refugee camp after Palestinians threw stones. The action was largest punishment of Israeli troops in the nearly year-old Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories. The army said the jailing of the soldiers stemmed from an incident last Sunday at the U.N.-run Kalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem. The soldiers received jail sentences for periods of up to two weeks, the army said.

Unrest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip wound up a full month Friday with the death of the 26th Palestinian victim of army gunfire and the arrival of a senior U.N. official on a controversial fact-finding trip. The violence continued despite extraordinary government efforts to suppress it, including the jailing for three to six months of "dozens" of Palestinian activists without trial.

Israeli army tanks smashed into the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip late Monday and drove to the heart of Ramallah in the West Bank as Israel intensified its hunt for militants. Palestinians reported at least 22 dead and 75 injured in heavy fighting in Jabaliya, the largest refugee camp in Gaza. Israeli television reported that shortly before midnight, about 50 tanks entered the sprawling camp, which is home to about 100,000 refugees and is a bastion of militancy.

More than 100 refugees from the ethnically spawned violence in Kosovo arrived here Monday on a profoundly symbolic day, as Israel began its annual remembrance ceremonies for the millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

On a rain-lashed mountaintop near Israel's northern border, the people of this vanished Arab village cling to its sole surviving building--a small, square church--and stubbornly insist that the government right a half-century-old wrong. They retell the tale they have repeated endlessly over decades to anyone who will listen. "On Oct. 28, 1948, the Israeli army came into our village, and we welcomed them," recalled Aouni Sbeit, 65, a poet who was 17 when soldiers of the new Jewish state arrived.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Wednesday called for another Arab or European country to accept hundreds of exiled Palestinians stranded in a no-man's-land in southern Lebanon for the past two weeks. While Israel would not take back the men, suspected of belonging to militant Islamic groups, Rabin said his nation would allow them to pass through Israeli lines and assist them in traveling to exile in a third country.

In another demonstration of friction between Israel and the Bush Administration, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's government said Wednesday that it will boycott U.S.-sponsored conferences on Middle East economic development and refugee problems next week because Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be allowed to take part. "We have made our position clear that if Palestinian representatives from outside the territories . . .

Always, in past wars, Tel Aviv was the carefree heartland that Israelis left behind when they went to defend the country in the far-off sands of the Sinai or the mountainous Golan Heights. Now, suddenly, it is the front. For the first time in 42 years of independence through five wars, an enemy has struck deep and consistently into Israeli cities. In physical terms, the damage has so far been light. But in terms of the Israeli psyche, it has been clear and immediate.

Describing conditions in Palestinian camps and villages in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip as "appalling" and "degrading to any human beings," officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed support Wednesday for a $2-billion proposal to rebuild the settlements. Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the center, said that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir suggested the rebuilding plan in a meeting last week.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Wednesday called for another Arab or European country to accept hundreds of exiled Palestinians stranded in a no-man's-land in southern Lebanon for the past two weeks. While Israel would not take back the men, suspected of belonging to militant Islamic groups, Rabin said his nation would allow them to pass through Israeli lines and assist them in traveling to exile in a third country.

As Palestinian refugees from Kuwait and Iraq streamed westward across the Jordan River on Sunday, a senior Israeli government official promised to expedite the flow of those returning to the West Bank from the Persian Gulf crisis area. Shmuel Goren, occupied territories coordinator, paid a visit to this historic crossing place between Jordan and the West Bank and declared that Israel would "obviously help" any foreign citizens wishing to pass this way.

East Germany has reversed its position and agreed to compensate Israel for taking in thousands of refugees from Nazi Germany after World War II, according to a letter from East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere to World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman. Previously, East Germany had agreed to pay reparations to Jewish groups but not to Israel. Negotiations on the amount probably will take place next year after East Germany is united with West Germany, officials said.