1. PALESTINIANS FIRE MISSILE INTO ISRAEL; ISRAEL RETURNS FIRE… A Qassam rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into the southern Israeli community of Sderot early Wednesday morning. No damage or casualties were reported. A short time later, Israel’s army and air force put on a show of strength aimed at deterring future bombardments from Gaza. Artillery was fired in the direction of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, fighter jets broke the sound barrier, and a missile was fired into an open field after the Israelis warned Palestinians to stay clear of the area. The Israeli barrage also caused no injury or damage. On Tuesday, five Qassams had been launched toward Israel following the funeral of a top Islamic Jihad operative who was killed in a shootout with Israeli troops. That rocket attack also drew Israeli air raids on targets in Gaza.
2. SECSTATE RICE: ISRAEL MUST FREE UP BORDERS, ALLOW PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT… U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that Israel must resolve the matter of border crossings with the Gaza Strip and issues of freedom of movement within the West Bank. Her remarks were effectively a defense of those made earlier in the week by Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn, in which he criticized Israel for foot-dragging on the issue. Wolfensohn accused Israel of reneging on an earlier commitment to allow convoys of Palestinians to travel between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and of referring the issues to subcommittees rather than dealing with them. He said that Israel’s stalling combined with Palestinian failures to improve their ability to govern will scare off international donor money to revitalize Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian Authority. Secretary Rice reiterated Wolfensohn’s point, saying that resolving the issue of borders is necessary in order to achieve “the kind of economic program we all want to see in the Palestinian territories.” She defended the envoy’s position, explaining that Wolfensohn “is simply asking the parties to do everything they can now that the Israelis are out of the Gaza Strip to make sure that Gaza is going to be a place where Palestinians can see a different kind of life and therefore start to build the foundations for a Palestinian state.”
3. HAMAS LEADER SAYS PARTICIPATION IN THE ‘CALM’ PREDICATED ON ISRAELI RELEASE OF PRISONERS… Hamas’s participation in a period of ‘calm’ – typically presented in Western media as a ‘cease-fire’ – is predicated upon Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners it is holding. According to the top Hamas man in the Gaza Strip, if Israel does not release the prisoners by the end of 2005, violence will return. Speaking to The Media Line in Arabic, Dr. Mahmoud A-Zahhar said, “the prisoners must be released before the end of 2005 so that there will be no cause to return to the methods of resistance…Israel has an opportunity to release the prisoners after its withdrawal from Gaza – or at least to release some of them – so that the people of the West Bank are not obliged to take measures, including kidnappings.”
4. BBC ANNOUNCES PLANS TO LAUNCH ARABIC LANGUAGE TELEVISION… Coming shortly after the Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera announced plans to launch an English-language service, the BBC has announced it will offer 12 hours of Arabic broadcasting each day. The new channel will begin airing in 2007. In order to accommodate the move internally, the BBC will halt broadcasts in ten other languages, mostly affecting eastern European countries. Unions are complaining that the shift will cost more than 200 jobs, but BBC management responded by saying that 148 new positions will be created by the move to Arabic. BBC also denies any political motive to the move in spite of the significant impact Al-Jazeera has had on the face of broadcasting from the Middle East. While Al-Jazeera has succeeded in a large way, an American effort to present Arabic-language programming through its Al-Hurra network is considered by most experts to have failed. The BBC has been broadcasting in Arabic on radio for more than sixty years.