Palestinians

Washington Decides on Direct Action Against Arafat

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 26, 2002, 12:50 PM (GMT+02:00)

debkafile 's Washington sources report that the White House is holding back till next week the punitive actions against Yasser Arafat decided on at a top-level presidential forum convened by US president George W. Bush on Friday, January 25. Called to the White House policy review on the Palestinian ...

Arafat Burns Last Bridges to Oslo, Declares War

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 23, 2002, 12:51 PM (GMT+02:00)

debkafile's military sources report that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has ordered his 20,000-man police force to take to the war field - a drastic step that moves his confrontation with Israel into the realm of full-scale belligerence. Militarizing his police force is more than just another blatant violation ...

Hamas Will Hold Back Only Until Arafat Is Free

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 22, 2002, 1:11 PM (GMT+02:00)

The devout Muslim Yasser Arafat, who ignited the "al Aqsa Intifada" conflagration in September 2000, has developed a strong urge to attend Christmas Mass in Bethlehem. But he is in a cleft stick. To escape the Israeli siege holding him down in Ramallah, he must ask Israel for permission to ...

Terrorist Shot Dead While Reloading

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 22, 2002, 12:53 PM (GMT+02:00)

Of the 49 wounded, two women did not live through the night. One was 79-year old Sarah Hamburger, mother of four and grandmother of eleven. The second has still to be identified by a relative coming from Russia. At 4:20 pm Israel Time, a lone gunmen, later identified as ...

Arafat's Martyrs, Bush's Terrorists: PART 2 - Next Terror Wave Just Beginning

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 15, 2002, 12:58 PM (GMT+02:00)

Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, Romanian intelligence chief under the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet bloc,wrote an article entitled "The Arafat I Know" in the Wall Street Journal of January 10. The occasion he marked was Israel's capture of ...

Palestinian Security Chief Dahlan Supervised Karine-A Loading from Dubai

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 9, 2002, 11:10 AM (GMT+02:00)

debkafile's military sources report that the Israeli intelligence officers due in Washington Wednesday, January 9, carry incriminating proofs of Yasser Arafat's direct complicity in all the stages of the foiled Karine-A gun-running operation. Headed by Lt.-Col Yossi Kuperwasser, head of Army Intelligence (Aman) Research Department, the ...

Sharon of Arafat: from "Irrelevant" to "Bitter Enemy"

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 6, 2002, 1:04 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon responded with alacrity to the call voiced Sunday, January 6, by chief of staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz for a re-examination of the strategy governing Israel's relations with the Palestinian Authority and its head. Mofaz urged an immediate government review in the light of ...

Karine-A Seizure Changes US Game Rules for Arafat

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 5, 2002, 1:05 PM (GMT+02:00)

It took the New York Times only a few hours to obtain corroboration from "senior administration officials in Washington" for debkafile's January 4disclosure that the US was involved in tracking the Palestinian arms ship seized in a combined Israeli naval-air force operations on the Red Sea Thursday. The ...

Arafat Plans Declaration of War of Liberation

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 4, 2002, 1:08 PM (GMT+02:00)

The day US Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni returned to the region, debkafile's Palestinian sources quoted Yasser Arafat as confiding to his intimates that he was drafting his most important speech in two decades: a declaration of the Palestinian War of Liberation. He promised to wait until after ...

Another Arafat "Welcome" Due for Zinni

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 1, 2002, 1:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has not been idle since Israel confined him to Ramallah in the wake of the last deadly round of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians a month ago. That torrent of violence also cut the mission of US envoy Anthony Zinni short on December 15. The envoy ...

Shoe bomber Richard Reid and the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 31, 2001, 5:01 PM (GMT+02:00)

Shoe bomber Richard Reid may have been strip-searched by Israel's security-conscious El Al airlines before they flew him from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv in July 2001, but in the Gaza Strip he was accorded upgraded hospitality. According to debkafile's military and intelligence sources, Nabil Aqal, one of ...

Arafat Has No Intention of Delivering

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 16, 2001, 1:12 PM (GMT+02:00)

In a key speech delivered Sunday, December 16, Day One of Eid el Fitr, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat vowed the Palestinians would continue their struggle against Israel until a Palestinian state is attained, with Jerusalem its capital. At the same time, he instructed his people to obey Palestinian Authority ...

Palestinians Plan to Pile up Violence

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 15, 2001, 1:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Indications are mounting, debkafile 's military sources report, that Yasser Arafat is preparing to throw his security and police personnel into the arena as a regular fighting force. This would be tantamount to escalating the Palestinian intifada or uprising to full-scale belligerence, wielding the full Palestinian arsenal. Arafat implied ...

Israel Government Fights Terror Euphemism

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 13, 2001, 1:15 PM (GMT+02:00)

With another 10 Israelis dead and 22 still in hospital from the latest Palestinian terror outrage Wednesday, the Israeli defense cabinet's ruling in a special session that the Palestinian Authority is "no longer relevant to the State of Israel" sounds feeble, bureaucratic and evasive. The very phrasing will intensify ...

Palestinian Attempt on Zinni's Life or Signal to Leave

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 10, 2001, 1:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

At round about 16:43 IT, Monday, December 10, US Middle East envoy former General Anthony Zinni was due to pass through the el Baluah suburb of N. Ramallah on his way to call on Yasser Arafat, when a truck loaded with gas canisters blew up. The explosion occurred two ...

Arafat at Bay Is Still Dangerous

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 10, 2001, 1:16 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will not go quietly. Faced with crushing pressure from across the Atlantic and the Israeli military, debkafile's political experts believehe will vent all his destructive energies and guile for before he is consigned to history. Yet another Palestinian suicide bombing, this one in ...

Second Front in Global Anti-Terror War - Against Palestinian Violence

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 3, 2001, 1:20 PM (GMT+02:00)

According to debkafile's most reliable sources, the major Israeli offensive scheduled for the next hours or days to smash the Palestinian terrorist machine, will in fact open America's second front against world terrorism. This was the upshot of the hasty interview that took place at the White ...

Terrorists Hit Jerusalem's Pleasure Center

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 2, 2001, 1:21 PM (GMT+02:00)

The brightly-lit cafes, restaurants and night spots of central Jerusalem's main pedestrian mall were packed with youngsters on an ordinary Saturday night's outing, when two suicide killers blew themselves up at the heart of the throng. Within seconds, the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall near Zion Square filled with ...

Do Arafat's Aides Really Want to Halt Terror?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 8, 2001, 1:57 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israel's chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, has said that heads of Palestinian preventive security agencies are urging Yasser Arafat to put a stop to his campaign of terror. debkafile notes that this widely-reported quote, though accurate, was presented out of its general context. It was ...

Prospect of Bush-Arafat Handshake Is Far from Firm

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 4, 2001, 9:38 AM (GMT+02:00)

As part of a fresh policy posture on the Middle East, President George W. Bush is reported to be preparing to receive Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for a long-awaited first encounter on the occasion of the UN General Assembly session next week. US, European, Palestinian and Israeli sources report that ...