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Israeli forces surround Palestinian security chief's office

BEITUNIA, West Bank (CNN) -- Israeli forces have surrounded the office of the Palestinian security chief in the West Bank, an Israeli army spokesman said Saturday.

In a telephone interview with CNN from inside his house outside Ramallah, Jibril Rajoub said the Israelis had ordered everyone to leave the building and been told that if they did not comply, Israeli tanks would flatten it.

"The Israelis now are surrounding my headquarters with mortar, M-16s, military vehicles and armored cars," he said.

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He did not say whether he would order the people inside the building to comply with the Israeli demand.

Rajoub said he spoke Saturday morning by cell phone with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who is holed up in the second floor of his shattered compound in Ramallah -- his telephone, water and electricity lines cut by the Israelis, their forces yards away from him.

"There is no more water, and there is no electricity and I think also there is no more food," Rajoub said about the conditions inside Arafat's compound.

Against this grim backdrop, Rajoub praised the U.N. resolution passed early Saturday that calls for the Israelis to withdraw from the Palestinian territories, and urged U.S. President George W. Bush to take note.

"I think it was a positive resolution, but I hope that the Americans -- Uncle Sam -- have the right resolution, the right decision," he said. "I think it's now a historic moment for the Americans to decide whether they want to protect this crazy, this stupid unilateral war against the Palestinian people, the occupation by Israelis of the Palestinian land."

He added, "Believe me, it's time now for Mr. Bush to recharge his mental batteries, to reconsider his policies in the Middle East, in order to put [an] end to this."

Rajoub said the Israeli moves represent "a threat for the regional stability, and I think it is a threat to the American interests in the Middle East with the Arabs, with the Muslims, with everybody in the world."



 
 
 
 







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