MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat was intervening personally in efforts to win the release of two Arabs from East Jerusalem, who were abducted by insurgents in Iraq, his office said yesterday.
The first indication that the two men working for international aid agencies had been kidnapped came on Thursday, when brief interviews with them were broadcast on Iranian television. They were identified as Mr Nabil George Razouk (30) and Mr Ahmed Yassin Tikati (33), and they were shown with Israeli identity cards.
The men's captors accused the two of working for Israel's Mossad spy agency. Both Israeli officials and members of the Razouk family denied the claims.
Arab residents of East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel after the 1967 war, are issued Israeli identity cards, but few have sought full citizenship.
A former Palestinian ambassador to Iraq and now a cabinet minister, Mr Azzam al-Ahmed, said the Palestinian Authority had "agreed to make contact with the different parties in Iraq ... to try and find out where they are and to clarify matters with the group that abducted them".
A source in the Israeli defence establishment was quoted by Army Radio as saying Israel would not agree to enter into negotiations with the kidnappers. The source said the two had travelled to Iraq of their own volition and in contravention of Israeli law. Later, a foreign ministry spokesman in Jerusalem said that the US was handling the case.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, thousands of Palestinians yesterday took to the streets in a display of support for the insurgents in Iraq. Protesters burned effigies of President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and called on the Iraqi people to wage "holy war" on their US occupiers. "We are fighting against the same enemies, the same occupation," a senior Islamic Jihad official, Mr Muhammed al-Hindi, said.