ARABS-ISRAEL - Apr 1 - Sharon Threatens To Target Arafat.

Israel Radio reports PM Sharon as having threatened Pres. Arafat and said: "Whoever is responsible for the murder of Jews, let him not think he has an insurance policy", and he also mentioned Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a possible target. Sharon made the same remark in interviews with the Israeli media. (The Israeli cabinet threatened some months ago to "remove" Arafat, who has been holed up for more than two years in his battered HQ in the West Bank city of Ramallah). Sharon's statement came hours after after Palestinian PM Ahmad Qurie met US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and National Security Council Middle East Affairs head Elliot Abrams in the West Bank town of Jericho ahead of their talks with Sharon. Qurie later told reporters he sought guarantees from the US that Sharon's plan to evacuate most of the Gaza Strip would not stymie attempts for a comprehensive agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Mar 31 UNRWA suspended emergency food aid to half of the eligible refugees living in occupied Palestinian lands after Israel imposed new restrictions on the movement of aid containers. The agency said it stopped distributing rice, flour, cooking oil and other essential foods to some 600,000 refugees in the Gaza strip, where nearly two out of three families live below the poverty line and more than half the work force is unemployed.