MIDDLE EAST

TWO TERRORISTS KILLED IN GAZA AIR STRIKE

GAZA CITY, Gaza City – Two Hamas terrorists were killed when an explosion ripped through their vehicle in Gaza City on yesterday in an Israeli air strike, the second in as many days. Eight other people were injured in the strike. Hamas threatened to retaliate with suicide bombings inside Israel.

Israel is planning to withdraw its soldiers and dismantle all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza next year, and analysts predict escalating violence as the pullout approaches. Palestinian Arab terrorists are trying to show that they are ejecting the Israelis by force, while Israel is just as determined to hit the terrorists and demonstrate that it would not tolerate attacks after the withdrawal.

As in previous days, Palestinian Arabs fired several rockets and mortars at Jewish settlements in Gaza and towns just outside the fence yesterday. No one was hurt. The military released a statement saying the two Hamas terrorists it killed “were on their way to launch Qassam rockets at Israeli targets.”

– Associated Press

EAST AFRICA

PRIEST ACCUSED OF GENOCIDE FAILS TO SHOW AT TRIAL

ARUSHA, Tanzania – A Roman Catholic priest accused of ordering the slaughter of 2,000 people who sought refuge in his church during Rwanda’s genocide refused to appear for the start of his trial at a U.N. tribunal yesterday.

Reverend Athanase Seromba did not attend in protest against U.N. plans to transfer the trials of some genocide suspects from the Tanzania-based tribunal to Rwanda. The trial began without Mr. Seromba after prosecutors argued his rights would not be violated as long as his lawyers were present, tribunal spokesman Roland Amoussouga said. Mr. Seromba is the first Roman Catholic priest to be tried for the 1994 genocide, in which at least 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed.

During an initial appearance last year, he pleaded innocent to charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity related to the 100-day slaughter orchestrated by the extremist Hutu government then in power. The transfer of some trials to Rwanda is meant to help ease the load on the tribunal, which is trying to meet a U.N. Security Council deadline to complete investigations by the end of 2004, end trials by 2008, and close down by the end of 2010. About 44 suspects said they would not attend court proceedings for three days starting yesterday to protest against the planned transfers. The tribunal does not force defendants to appear. The suspects also began a hunger strike, Mr. Amoussouga said.

– Associated Press

CARIBBEAN

DEATH TOLL IN HAITI SPIKES TO AT LEAST 573

GONAIVES, Haiti – The death toll from a tropical storm that devastated parts of Haiti rose to 573 late yesterday as search crews recovered hundreds of bodies carried away by raging weekend floods or buried by mud or the ruins of their homes, officials said.

The bodies of at least 500 people killed by Tropical Storm Jeanne were filling morgues in Gonaives, according to Touissant Kong-Doudou, a spokesman for the U.N. mission. Fifty-six were killed in northern Port-de-Paix and 17 died in the nearby town of Terre Neuve, officials said. “The water is high. As it goes down, we expect to find more bodies,” Mr. Kongo-Doudou said.

Two days after lashing Haiti, Jeanne regained hurricane strength over the open Atlantic yesterday but posed no immediate threat to land. Since it developed last week, Jeanne has been blamed for at least 598 deaths, including 18 in the Dominican Republic and seven in Puerto Rico.

“I lost my kids and there’s nothing I can do,” said Jean Estimable, whose 2-yearold daughter was killed and another of his five children was missing and presumed dead. “All I have is complete despair and the clothes I’m wearing,” he said, pointing to a floral dress and ripped pants borrowed from a neighbor.

– Associated Press