Renewing a truce mission, a US mediator met with Yasser Arafat at the Palestinian leader's besieged headquarters yesterday, as Israel pressed on with its offensive against Palestinian militants despite US demands that troops halt incursions and withdraw from West Bank cities.
Israeli tanks entered new Palestinian territory -- Tubas, a town of 20,000 in the West Bank -- and attack helicopters battled hundreds of gunmen in the city of Nablus and nearby refugee camps. At least 12 Palestinians, including several gunmen and a 14-year-old girl, were killed yesterday. The Israeli military also removed the bodies of six Palestinians from Bethlehem, but it was not clear whether these were new casualties.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said yesterday that "we are continuing the operation we started."
Israeli commentators said Israel believed it had a few more days -- at least until the arrival of US Secretary of State Colin Powell in the region next week -- to keep going with the operation.
In Bethlehem, a standoff between Israeli forces and about 240 gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity entered a fourth day. Four of about 60 priests trapped in the church came out yesterday and left Bethlehem under Israeli escort, the military said.
Giacomo Bini, a senior Roman Catholic official in Rome, said both Israel and the Palestinian gunmen have caused damage to the shrine, one of Christianity's holiest.
In the Gaza Strip, some 10,000 supporters of the Islamic militant Hamas group rallied in the Jebaliya refugee camp. Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder, said the group would not stop attacks on Israelis, and accused the US of trying to weaken the Palestinians' resolve by renewing the truce effort.
US envoy Anthony Zinni met for 90 minutes yesterday with Arafat, becoming the first senior official in eight days to meet with the Palestinian leader, who has been confined to a few rooms in his West Bank headquarters since last week.
Arafat adviser Nabil Abu Rdeneh said there would be more meetings between Palestinian and US officials later in the day.
The heaviest fighting yesterday was reported in the West Bank town of Nablus, the adjacent refugee camp of Balata and the refugee camp of Jenin to the north.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary