:10/22/2000 11:13:00 ET Israel stops Iraqi food convoy for Palestinians -INA

BAGHDAD, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Iraq said on Sunday Israel had prevented a convoy of trucks carrying food and medicine it sent from crossing into Palestinian areas, but vowed to continue sending humanitarian supplies, the official news agency INA said.

Over the past three days Iraq had sent 104 trucks loaded with food and medicine to the Palestinian people, it said. INA did not specify where the shipments had allegedly been stopped. A cabinet statement issued last week after a meeting chaired by President Saddam Hussein said humanitarian supplies would be sent to the Palestinians, some 120 of whom have died in violence sweeping the West Bank, Gaza Strip and parts of northern Israel. Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, quoted by INA, said "This criminal measure practised by the authorities of the Zionist entity is not strange to the world." "It (Israel) daily kills our people and their children in occupied Palestine and imposes on them a siege by oppressive methods similar to what America is doing to the Iraqi people, whom it has besieged by unjust sanctions for more than ten years," Saleh said.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20001022_550.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 22, 2000