These moves came amidst the furor surrounding the assassination of Palestinian militia leader Hussein Obeiyat, ordered by high-level officials in Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, U.S. president William Clinton conducted separate and inconclusive talks with Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.

The Israeli army tightened its grip on the occupied territories after Palestinian gunfire hit a car on a West Bank road November 13, leaving two soldiers and two civilians dead. This was the highest one-day toll for Israelis since the conflict broke out at the end of September. The death toll reached at least 226 on November 15, after Israeli soldiers killed six people in the West Bank and two in Gaza. The great majority of the dead are Palestinians killed by Israeli assaults. More than 9,000 have been wounded.

Hussein Obaiyat was killed November 9 by rockets fired from Israeli helicopter gunships that destroyed the car in which he was traveling. Obaiyat is the leader of a Bethlehem militia unit associated with Fatah, the dominant group in the Palestine Liberation Organization. The explosion killed two women who happened to be nearby. "This is our response," said Deputy Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh after the assassination. "Whoever wants a guerrilla war needs to understand that it’s a two-sided thing."  
 
Clampdown takes a toll
"Israeli generals made clear that more assassinations could follow," reported the New York Times. A day later, Israeli soldiers fired on a car driven by Saedi Mohtaseb, another leader of Fatah. Mohtaseb survived, but his son died in the attack. The same day, Israeli police banned Palestinian men under the age of 45 from joining Friday prayers at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, enforcing the edict with batons.

Tel Aviv’s clampdown is taking a heavy toll in the occupied territories. "Israelis are bombarding Palestinian cities for the first time in decades," reported Deborah Sontag in the New York Times. Targets have included the Palestinian-owned casino in the West Bank city of Jericho, badly damaged by tank fire on November 12.

In one incident on November 15, Israeli forces, claiming they had come under rifle fire, fired antitank missiles and tank-mounted cannons at a block of flats at a crossroads near Ramallah in the West Bank. Israeli tank machine guns also riddled a Ramallah local government building with bullets.

More than 80 percent of Palestinians suffer serious economic effects from the Israeli military siege, according to a poll reported in the Ha’aretz newspaper. "Some 77 percent said the closure stops at least one family member from getting to work," reported the newspaper. The poll results were released November 15, the anniversary of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s 1988 symbolic proclamation of a Palestinian state. More than two-thirds of the 1,234 poll respondents said they support the formation of such a state in the West Bank and Gaza.  
 
Washington tries to restart talks
At a meeting between Clinton and Arafat on November 8, the U.S. president again rejected Arafat’s call for a 2,000-member international "protection force" to be stationed in the Mideast. Arafat has taken the demand to the UN Security Council. Tel Aviv opposes the plan, and has also turned down a proposal by the French government for a smaller, unarmed military observer group.

On his way to Washington to meet Clinton, Barak said he didn’t "expect that the talks...will lead to a renewal of negotiations." Washington is pushing for an agreement between Tel Aviv and the Palestinian leadership that would place more responsibility for policing the Palestinian population onto the security forces of the Palestinian National Authority.

The Reuters news service reported on November 15 that a "senior Palestinian security official said Arafat’s security chiefs had issued orders in the past 10 days banning gunmen from firing at Israelis from inside Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank and Gaza."

Nevertheless, daily confrontations continue at many different points in the occupied territories, as Palestinians defy the heavy, and growing, presence of the Israeli military. Fatah militia and Palestinian officials, along with Hamas and other organizations, have continued to organize and encourage the actions, which include exchanges of fire with the Israeli forces.  
 
Washington aid to Israel, Egypt, Jordan
Other developments across the Middle East show Washington’s push to increase its already weighty military, economic, and political influence over a number of governments in a region marked by instability.

"With the Middle East peace effort that Mr. Clinton has worked to broker now in shambles," reported the Times, "administration officials have sought ways to mitigate the long-term fallout."

Clinton has asked the U.S. congress to grant $750 million in "emergency aid" to the governments of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. If the request is granted, Tel Aviv will receive $450 million in military aid, including a new Arrow II antiballistic missile system. Around $225 million will go to Cairo "for port and coastal security, which could strengthen Cairo’s counterterrorism efforts," reported the November 15 New York Times. The Jordanian regime will receive $25 million to "improve security along its borders with Iraq and Syria and $50 million to help the Mideast ally’s beleaguered economy."

In a letter to congressional leaders, Clinton wrote, "These requests will advance United States interests in the Middle East."

Israel and Egypt are the two largest recipients of U.S. aid, receiving an annual $2.8 billion and $2 billion respectively. Washington recently signed a pact with Amman reducing many barriers to trade between the two economies.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has acted as a willing ally of Washington in recent efforts to bring the situation in Israel and the occupied territories under control. In recent elections, his National Democratic Party won 388 of the Egyptian legislature’s 444 seats.

Legal opposition parties took 17 seats, as did candidates backed by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. During final runoffs on November 14, police reportedly blocked supporters of opposition candidates from entering several polling stations, firing tear gas and bullets in assaults that took five lives and wounded 40 people. A total of 12 people died in the campaign.  
 
‘Investigation’ in Yemen
Meanwhile, police in Yemen have been publicizing the testimony of a witness who claims to have been part of preparing the alleged attack on the USS Cole. The naval destroyer suffered extensive damage, loss of life, and injury in an October 12 explosion in the port of Aden. The man reportedly claims that the "mastermind" for the attack telephoned the bombers from the United Arab Emirates.

The authorities in Aden, who are cooperating with U.S. military and police personnel in a large-scale manhunt, are holding 60 people in jail. U.S. press reports FBI officials have been pressing for wider latitude in the investigation, claiming high-level Yemeni officials are linked to the bombing of the Cole. The Yemeni government acceded to the demand this week, allowing U.S. agents "to interview witnesses and to show composite sketches to suspects and eyewitnesses," wrote Associated Press journalist Ahmed Al-Haj.

The journalist reported that 50 Yemeni soldiers had gone to Gol Yamani, the home town of one suspect, "a poor farming town of unpaved dirt lanes and about 500 inhabitants." The soldiers were "armed with semiautomatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and [rode] in a convoy of seven jeeps," he wrote.  
 
 
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