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Paleos clean up and fortify Yasser's house...
Palestinians are laboring around the clock to clean up Yasser Arafat's battered compound, stacking up smashed cars and makeshift sandbags as a protective wall, but the work is far from completed, 10 days after Israel ended its latest siege. Don't bother, guys. The IDF's gonna tear it down all the way next time... Israeli tanks crashed into Arafat's city-block-sized headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Sept. 19 after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a Tel Aviv bus, killing six people. The Israelis withdrew on Sept. 29 under intense U.S. pressure, and the cleanup began almost immediately. Just clearing the rubble is a major undertaking, and reconstructing the compound would cost millions, officials say, far more than Arafat's cash-strapped regime has available. Maybe he could pull a few bucks out of his Rainy Day Fund in Geneva? Mohammed Fouad, one of the workers, contemplated one of the buildings he and other workers are trying to renovate, "I can't describe the destruction inside, it's huge," he said. "They destroyed everything, the kitchen, the walls, the electricity, everything." Tough when that happens, ain't it? The victims of the suicide boomers lost even more than that... The first order of business appears to be to protect Arafat from Israeli snipers, who sometimes take up positions in buildings with a view of the office. Next spate of boomers, he's not going to have to worry about snipers... Thanks to Steve for the link... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-10-09 |
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